For the second webinar in our Native Communities Learning Project: We Are Still Here series, three experts on Native early childhood frameworks shared their knowledge: Jessica Saniguq Ullrich, MSW, PhD (Nome Eskimo Community, descendant of Native Village of Wales), Assistant Professor at IREACH at Washington State University; Chelsea Wesner MPH, MSW, DrPH (Choctaw Nation), Research Scientist, Centers for American Indian & Alaska Native Health at the Colorado School of Public Health; and Barb Fabre (White Earth Ojibwe Nation), CEO of Indigenous Visioning and All Nations Rise. Dr. Ullrich and Ms. Fabre serve on the advisory committee for We Are Still Here. Dr. Ullrich is a board member of Alaska Children’s Trust, an Alliance state ally. All Nations Rise is a grantee of the Power Equity Fund.
The webinar, Native Early Childhood Frameworks: Traditional Child-Rearing Practices, Kinship Systems, and Community Care, explored Indigenous approaches to early childhood development, kinship systems, cultural connectedness, and community-based caregiving. While every Native nation is different and unique, Native child development frameworks are inherently relational, intergenerational, land-based, and culturally grounded.
As part of her research, Dr. Ullrich developed the Indigenous Connectedness Framework, which highlights the interconnected relationships that support child wellbeing: self, family, community, ancestors, land, and future generations. Her work underscores how culture, language, and relational practices form a protective foundation that counters historical and ongoing trauma. Dr. Ullrich explains that healthy development requires internal connectedness as well as external relational networks, noting that Indigenous love, relational reciprocity, and cultural teachings contribute to resilience and healing.
Building on this, Dr. Chelsea Wesner described efforts to apply the connectedness framework to measure Indigenous early relational wellbeing (ERW). Her team collaborates with tribal communities to develop culturally aligned tools that reflect Indigenous caregiving ecosystems rather than more narrow, Western approaches. These tools recognize relational practices such as cultural foodways, land-based learning, storytelling, kinship teaching, and community caregiving as key indicators of child wellbeing.
Barbara Fabre expanded the discussion to Tribal early childhood systems, illustrating how Indigenous kinship caregiving is structured, intentional, and grounded in shared cultural responsibility. She emphasized that early childhood programs should serve as spaces for collective healing and cultural restoration, not merely sites of service delivery. Faber underscored the importance of language revitalization, land-based education, and intergenerational teaching, arguing that these practices strengthen identity, belonging, and community cohesion. She also previewed a forthcoming national agenda aimed at improving Indigenous early childhood policy and practice.
A few takeaways from the webinar include:
- Culture and relationality are protective factors that nurture emotional, spiritual, and communal wellbeing for Indigenous children.
- Historical and intergenerational trauma must be acknowledged, but Indigenous identity is more than trauma and is rooted in resilience, strength, and love rather than deficit.
- Kinship systems and extended family caregiving remain central, offering stability and belonging in ways that Western nuclear family models often overlook.
- Land, language, and community are foundational teachers, shaping identity and guiding child development.
- Early childhood systems must center Tribal sovereignty and design programs that uplift Indigenous families’ cultural worldviews and caregiving traditions.
Overall, the webinar called for a paradigm shift: from Westernized, compliance-driven models of early childhood to relationship-centered, culturally grounded, community-driven systems that honor Indigenous knowledge and support the thriving of Native children and families.
Resources
Native Early Childhood Framework, Presentation Slides, Barb Fabre, 2026. (To receive a copy of the slides shared by Jessica Saniguq Ullrich, MSW, PhD, contact her at jessica.ullrich@wsu.edu; To receive a copy of the slides shared by Chelsea Wesner, MSW, MPH, DrPH, contact her at chelsea.wesner@cuanschutz.edu.)
Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being, Eric Madsen, Alaska Native Knowledge Network, 1996.
Leech Lake Early Childhood Development website, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Early Childhood Development Program
Children’s Books that Reflect Native American Traditions and Values
Baby Rattlesnake, Te Ata, Lynn Moroney, Mira Reisberg
Grandmother’s Pigeon, The Range Eternal, and The Birchbark House, Louise Erdrich
Young Readers Collection, Birchbark Books
American Indians/Indigenous Peoples/Native Nations Book Recommendations by Age, Social Justice Books
School Library Resources, The American Indian Library Association
Best Books, American Indians in Children’s Literature
Arvaaq Press, a Nunavut-based educational publishing company
Bookstore, National Indian Child Care Association Bookstore