National Wildlife Federation Early Childhood Health Outdoors Awarded Grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood, and Other Funders

National Wildlife Federation Early Childhood Health Outdoors Awarded Grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood, and other funders

Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) is thrilled to announce grant awards from two national early childhood funders, in addition to several new partnerships that will help us grow our impact.

We recently received a $200,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to implement innovative, systemic-change strategies that reimagine early childhood playgrounds as dynamic, engaging, and healthy outdoor learning environments.

With this funding, ECHO will elevate lessons learned from our deep work in diverse early childhood contexts and geographies to inform the national movement.

We will support the formation of a diverse and representative ECHO Advisory Council to determine how best to apply lessons learned and build strategies for replication.

In addition, the grant will help fund the ongoing development and implementation of policy strategies in coordination with other national leaders, as well as efforts to build and implement strategic communications campaigns at the state level.

ECHO is at a moment in our evolution where we are poised for greater impact – by supporting the growth and enhancement of both our advocacy and our services, the investment from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will help us reach more young children and families.

Also, we are pleased to share that we recently received approval of a $75,000 grant from the Caplan Foundation for Early Childhood, an incubator of promising research and development projects that appear likely to improve the welfare of young children, from infancy through seven years, in the United States.

For this work, we are partnering with Amy Wagenfeld, PhD, who is an occupational therapist, therapeutic design consultant, educator, researcher, author, professor at the University of Washington, and Principal of Amy Wagenfeld | Design. Dr. Wagenfeld is internationally recognized for her expertise in therapeutic, sensory, and trauma-responsive design for correctional, educational, and healthcare facilities.

Together, we will be developing tools for supporting social-emotional development in outdoor learning environments, including a specialized training series for professionals that identifies sensory-based and social-emotional learning opportunities and how to optimize their effectiveness for children from infancy to age five.

The grant will also support the development of a practical and scalable accompanying toolkit of resources for professionals to use to support social-emotional learning while engaging with children outdoors.

This project is significant because research confirms that children who spend more time outdoors have better physical health, mental health, and an enhanced capacity to learn. Being in diverse, natural settings provides young children with opportunities to practice moving their bodies, to establish and maintain friendships more easily, to be more creative, and to develop their readiness and openness to learn.

For neurodivergent children, who are more likely to experience sensory processing challenges, anxiety, trouble regulating behaviors, learning difficulties, and more, the opportunities for development that are afforded by inclusive outdoor environments are profound. We are deeply grateful to the Caplan Foundation for their investment in this important work.

In Colorado, we recently partnered with the Jefferson County Child Care Associationon preparing a grant proposal to Colorado Gives Foundation to provide professional development and quality improvement funding to Family Child Care Home providers throughout Jefferson County. We were awarded $60,000 by the foundation to carry out this work.

ECHO’s partnerships across the country continue to grow fruitfully as well. Our work with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s LEAF initiative (Learning Environments for All to Flourish) has recently commenced.

Members of ECHO’s team are traveling to Nebraska this month to begin the process of providing design assistance and professional development to five pilot sites across the state.

This work will facilitate research by the University’s Departments of Psychology and Landscape Architecture on the benefits of healthy outdoor environments for young children.

We are so thankful to be part of the University’s Grand Challenges Initiative and to our long-time ECHO partner and early childhood outdoor learning champion in Nebraska, Katie Krause, for making this project happen.

For more information about these projects, email us at echo@nwf.org or visit us at NWF.org/ECHO.