AAI’s CPPR Brings Early Childhood Wellness Events Across Kansas


Wed, 06/18/2025

author

Alicia Marksberry

Patricia Carillo, Ashley Lafond, Sushmita Samaddar, Jenny Welch-Buller

 

Parents of young children in Kansas now have a new way to connect with mental health experts, providers, and each other, right in their own communities. The Kansas Care and Wellness Conferences offer practical resources and meaningful conversations that help families navigate the often-overwhelming early childhood care and mental health systems. 

The Kansas Care and Wellness Conferences, implemented by the Center for Public Partnerships and Research (CPPR), a center within the Achievement and Assessment Institute, focus on how families and professionals can support the mental and developmental health needs of young children from birth to five years old and bridge the gaps between families and early childhood care and mental health providers.  

“We wanted to create a space for different types of people to gather around mental health and provide an opportunity for them to learn from one another and about different tools and resources,” said Ashley Lafond, a CPPR research project coordinator. “It’s about empowering people to normalize discussions around child well-being and mental health.”  

The CPPR team hopes that the conferences can connect the dots in the system and lead to better communication and understanding between families and providers.  

“It is rare for professionals and families to sit at the same table and hear how other families are experiencing the services in the region, because a lot of times there are resources, but families don’t know they exist,” said Meghan Kluth, a CPPR research project manager. “On the professional side, providers don’t always know what other services exist in the area, so bringing them together is beneficial as well.”  

This year, the first of three years of conferences, the CPPR team brought the conference to Garden City and Hays in May. The free, full-day events featured multiple panels from experts and families, a resource fair, and workshops, including a workshop from CPPR on community sensemaking that explored mental health and child care trends in Kansas. Some presentations focused on professional needs, such as child care providers and home visitors, while others focused on family needs.  

“We wanted people in the room to hear from people who have been navigating the system themselves and have also faced challenges and struggles in their lives as parents,” Lafond said.  

Ashley Beason, an independent contractor working on statewide autism spectrum disorder and neurodiversity advocacy, attended the Hays Care and Wellness Conference. As a mother with two children with special needs, she said that it was the best conference she had been to in a long time.  

“It was small and intimate, and the information and opportunities to connect were really meaningful,” Beason said. “We had the opportunity to share and reflect together in a way that a lot of traditional continuing education opportunities don’t allow for.”  

Bringing the conferences to communities, especially rural communities, across Kansas is an important part of the project. Driving hours across Kansas for a conference is not feasible or accessible for many families and practitioners, especially those with young children. CPPR staff wanted to make sure they were coming to the communities rather than the other way around to ensure that each event was personalized and accessible.  

“There's a ton of nuance across the state, even county to county, and the experiences of southwest Kansas are very different than the experiences of northeast Kansas,” Kluth said. 

Next year the CPPR team will be hosting the Kansas Care and Wellness Conference in central Kansas where they will again bring practitioners and families together to create connections and discuss innovative solutions that center children.  

 “We hope the conferences create positive ripple effects like connections or interventions within the early childhood system and provide a way for people, who might not always get to be heard, be heard,” Lafond said. 

The Kansas Care and Wellness Conferences were born out of a three-year federal Preschool Development Birth Through Five Renewal Grant (PDG B-5) designed to improve states' early childhood systems. CPPR, a center that seeks to improve the well-being of children, youth, and families through research and capacity building, provides implementation support for this grant, which was awarded to the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund. This initiative was made possible by a federal grant (90TP0131). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. 

 

Wed, 06/18/2025

author

Alicia Marksberry