Submitted by Kris Boone, boone.3@osu.edu
The North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education organization has funded a grant project for which Joy Rumble is the Co-PI. The project is a Professional Development Grant: "Whole Farm Planning for the 21st Century: Integrating childcare, healthcare, and health insurance into farm planning curriculum."
Additionally, out of the 13 proposals funded this year, this proposal was selected as the winner of the Paula Ford Award for Most Outstanding NCR-SARE Professional Development Program proposal for 2023. Congratulations, Joy and colleagues!
While this curriculum will target farm extension and non-profit educators, the curriculum itself cuts across the ANR, FCS, and CD program areas.
Project Summary:
USDA and CDC research has established that childcare (CC), healthcare (HC), and health insurance (HI) impact farm economic development, risk management, and quality of life yet there are few educational resources covering these topics. This SARE PDP project will fill this gap by garnering the research and extension expertise of the project team to develop and train farm Educators to deliver farmer-ready multi-media modules and learning tools on the topics of CC, HC, and HI targeting young, beginning farmers and ranchers, women, and small and medium farmers. Using a train-the-trainer model and drawing on the best practices of adult learning we will design two modules and 21 learning tools designed to be accessible to visual, auditory, and experiential learners, including: facilitator guides; fact sheets defining key terms, planning worksheets; evaluation instruments, and case study teaching resources including a video and comic book. Open-access curriculum will be designed with whole farm planning pedagogy. We will train a cohort of 10 Educators to deliver the curriculum to 300 farmers in the North Central Region. These Educators will participate in a curriculum learning circle. We will train 210 Educators and disseminate the curriculum throughout the region through webinars, in-conference trainings, and an online resource library. Educators participating in the training will increase their knowledge, confidence, and ability to offer programs that address social sustainability issues and that sustain farming as a livelihood with the long-term goal of helping farmers increase productivity, sustainability, and quality of life.