Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in Mile Markers, a twice monthly newsletter from Open Campus about the role of colleges in rural America. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.

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David Salinas knows how to approach strangers. He got good at it while in college, working as a photojournalist. And, he knows what to do when they’re shy at first. He mastered that when working as a car salesman. 

He has one question he always turns to in those moments: “Did you ever finish your education?”

And then, he just pauses … and listens. Sometimes people need a second to open up. It gives him time to read their body language, and set them at ease. That’s another skill he picked up, at his last job, working for child protective services. 

He noticed that a lot of people were scared to admit not having finished high school or attended college.

“No?” he finally replies, once they’ve opened up. 

“Well, what if I knew a way for you to get a GED for free?”

People love it when they hear free, he tells me. It’s clear the former salesman has perfected his pitch. 

In fact, it seems like his whole life has prepared him to be a career navigator for UpSKILL Coastal Bend, a coalition of education leaders and community partners working together to help the South Texas communities around Corpus Christi.

The group formed in 2018 with a goal of breaking down barriers to education, fostering open dialogue, and creating “a singular vision to power solutions that prepare our workforce for good-paying middle-skill jobs in high demand across the region.”

It’s a noble mission, if perhaps a bit vague. Such flexibility is important to their model, which depends on having enough wiggle room to address their challenges in sometimes creative ways … for instance, by turning a rural Dollar Store into an economic incubator or convincing a local judge to sentence offenders to a classroom instead of a jail cell.

Then there are the on-the-ground career coordinators. Like Armando Castellano, who covers seven towns yet is never more than a text away from racing to help his clients. Or Aaron Trevino, a city alderman in Falfurrias, a small town known for its famed tribal healer, a curandero, and an infamous border patrol station.

In such remote places, where some towns are a few hours drive from each other, organizers can’t afford to place all their time and resources in Corpus Christi.

“We’ve been really strategic to make sure the navigators are embedded in the communities we serve,” says Ann Vlach, the operations director at the nonprofit community foundation Education to Employment Partners.

David primarily advises residents of Jim Wells County. It is one of 11 counties serviced by the coalition, which includes representatives from local community colleges, the state’s workforce group, and various nonprofits.

Their work has to be holistic, David says. The same person who needs their GED is often making little or no income. They likely are searching for a new job, and may also be struggling to get housing or food benefits they would qualify for. The coalition works together to connect people to all the services they need at once … before they can accidentally slip through the cracks.

That’s why one of the first things David did, after taking the job two years ago, was make friends with Rosie Rodriguez at the Housing Authority of Alice. He gives weekly workshops there, some as simple as how to write a better resume, others about accessing adult education and potential workforce opportunities.

He keeps going, even though it’s an hour commute roundtrip from his home in Kingsville. Even though only a few people typically show up and most are retirement-aged. It’s important to be there. 

“They’ll know either nephews or grandchildren, and that’s one way to get word of mouth out there,” he says.

Jasmine Vegas certainly was glad that he did. The 37-year-old mother of four kids visited the housing authority a month ago, and left her number, after Rosie said she could possibly get her GED for free.

“I got a call from David the next day,” she says.

Jasmine tries to tell her two teenagers that they need to stay in school, even when they don’t want to … and she is tired of them responding by saying ‘Well, you dropped out.’

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The post The Man Helping Rural South Texans Get Their GED — For Free appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see? Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week.

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Kamala Harris announced Tuesday morning that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is her vice presidential running mate, bringing her campaign up many notches in rural credibility.

Walz grew up in Valentine, Nebraska (population 2,700), on his family’s farm before moving to the even smaller town of Butte, Nebraska (population 300), his sophomore year of high school, graduating in a class of 25 students.

After high school, he joined the National Guard and worked in manufacturing before attending Nebraska’s Chadron State College for a degree in social science education. He taught and coached high school football in Alliance, Nebraska (population 8,000), where he met his future wife, Minnesota-born Gwen Whipple. They married in 1994 and moved to Mankato, Minnesota (population 45,000), in 1996. Walz taught geography and coached football at Mankato West High School, where he also headed the school’s first gay-straight alliance.

In 2006, he ran for Congress as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nominee (a third party unique to Minnesota whose platform centers “progressive agrarian reform” and advocates for farmers, union workers, and the public ownership of utilities, railroads, and natural resources, as well as social security legislation, according to their website.) He won the disproportionately rural first congressional district of southern Minnesota, beating the district’s six-term Republican incumbent. He represented the district from 2007-2019 before becoming governor of Minnesota.

All this to say: Walz knows rural America.

Unlike many other Democrats, Walz understands what it’s like to be from a small town where no matter your political ideology, neighbors still look out for one another. He’s privy to political nuance in rural communities, like in the congressional district that voted for him and also voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Walz doesn’t hold the same disdain for or condescension of rural folks or Trump supporters that some Democrats are guilty of (Hillary Clinton’s 2016 “basket of deplorables” comment about Trump supporters is the most famous example of this).

This last point is what I find most compelling about him. Walz doesn’t think Trump supporters are dumb or are voting against their own interests; he thinks that Democrats have a messaging problem. In an interview with Ezra Klein, he harkened back to his teaching days to describe this issue.

“The schoolteacher in me keeps thinking, if I give a test, and 90% of the students fail, I can guarantee you it’s not because the kids aren’t smart, there’s something wrong with the test or the way I’m teaching it,” Walz told Klein. “I keep coming back to this: if they’re not voting for us, there’s not something wrong with them, there’s something [about Democrats’ messaging] that’s not quite clicking.”

Since it was first announced Walz was being considered for the V.P. pick, he’s developed his own way of talking about the threat of another Trump presidency by keeping it simple: Republicans are just plain-ole “weird.”

Before Walz hit mainstream media, Democrats were warning of the “existential threat to democracy” that Trump poses, but now they’ve united around Walz’s phrasing. Republicans who want to take books away, to be in your medical exam room – they’re weird for that.

This messaging is refreshing in its simplicity. The way Walz uses “weird” isn’t to shame Trump supporters; it’s to point out how odd Republican policies like book bans or abortion bans really are. Isn’t it counter to personal freedom – one of the fundamental values in the United States – to dictate what a person can and cannot read? Isn’t it a terrible privacy infraction to want a say in the healthcare people receive? Can’t we all just respect each other’s personal freedoms and mind our own business, Walz asks?

As Minnesota governor, Walz has passed an impressive number of progressive policies. Some of his signature accomplishments include investments in public education like free breakfast and lunch for all students, expansion of the state’s child tax credit, protections for reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare, a $1 billion investment in affordable housing and expanded voting rights access, to name just a few.

But he’s got critics, too. His governor’s campaign ran on a “One Minnesota” message meant to bridge the state’s rural-urban divide, but some Minnesota pundits say once he was armed with a Democratic trifecta in the governor’s office and in both chambers of the state legislature, his “One Minnesota” message changed.

“But once he got that trifecta, his message shifted to: ‘This is what we can do with single party control, the era of gridlock is over,’” said Hamline University professor David Schultz in a CNN interview. Other pundits have wondered whether he’ll be able to rekindle the unity that message spurred if the Harris-Walz ticket loses in November.

Even with these critiques, Walz seems to be a strong choice for the Harris campaign.

He hits many of the demographic factors Harris’ advisers were looking for, whether officially or not: He’s a white, rural, middle-age veteran who has won over the internet through a single word. And the power of the internet is nothing to scoff at – one of this summer’s it-girls, musician Charli XCX, declared Kamala Harris a “brat” (a counter-intuitive compliment that references Charli XCX’s hit album), and enthusiasm for Harris soared among young millennials and Gen Z. Capitalizing on Walz’s internet virality is a good strategy for getting young voters.

Pair that with Walz’s rural credibility (he recently said he could out-shoot Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance in a pheasant hunt), and the Harris-Walz ticket could be a force to be reckoned with.

The post Minnesota Governor Tim Walz Gives Harris Campaign Rural Cred appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

In rural Kansas, if you’re between the ages of 21 and 39ish, you might be considered a PowerUp —  but not just because of your age or location. A PowerUp is someone who is rural by choice. 

“The name was created to illustrate the goal of empowering and moving younger people in rural communities into positions of leadership and influence,” Simone Elder said. 

She is the PowerUp & Engagement Manager for the Kansas Sampler Foundation (KSF), which focuses on preserving and sustaining rural culture. “For years, returning to rural has gotten a bad rap — the perception that it’s less than or someone failed at their bigger endeavors elsewhere,” Elder said. But KSF has been working to shift that mindset. 

Despite old narratives about small towns being places to escape, grassroots leaders and policymakers in rural communities nationwide are exploring ways to attract young people to these places and make them feel at home there.

For example, KSF is challenging residents to envision new possibilities by getting out on the back roads to experience overlooked assets in their hometowns. “Through the Big Kansas Road Trip, we help Kansans and other visitors from outside the state to see Kansas with new eyes,” Elder said. 

After identifying PowerUps as some of the strongest assets available, KSF has emphasized cultivating rural influencers. “There’s tremendous value in having an older person visibly and intentionally elevate the work of younger people in rural,” Elder said. 

Many PowerUps KSF has interviewed express wanting a sense of community, especially when it comes to raising kids, and a number have voiced entrepreneurial aspirations. Elder noted that while being rural by choice can mean loving where you live, it can sometimes feel lonely or frustrating. “It doesn’t mean you chose wrong,” she said. It’s about having a strong network of champions that can move forward together.

In neighboring Nebraska, Megan Helberg has become one of those champions. Fifteen years ago, she was a “returner.” Similar to Kansas, Nebraska was having an issue telling its own story. “We used to kind of joke about how small we were,” Helberg said. “But we started to realize that people listen to what you say.” 

Helberg, who decided to return despite that old narrative, is now a local rancher and secondary school teacher. She also sits on the Board of Directors for the Nebraska Community Foundation and serves as chairperson for the Calamus Area Community Fund. 

She is one of many spreading the message that young Nebraskans should go explore but then bring their greatness back. “We need you here, we want you here, and you can make a great life here,” she said. In 2024, her school’s senior class had six graduates, all of whom are heading off to college. But 75% are committed to coming back to help with an existing business or start one of their own. 

Creating the climate for those kinds of endeavors is where the community fund comes in, relying on unrestricted endowments, local bank accounts that accept donations from community members. Only the accumulated interest can be spent and all funds must be poured back into the community.

“It has been absolutely transformational,” Helberg said. In her area, the community fund has supported the renovation of neglected homes, making the properties available again to combat the housing crisis. Two new childcare centers have also opened with local support, as well as additional funding sources.

While these grassroots efforts show the power of community when everyone joins in, there is also critical work happening at the policy level across the country. New Hampshire-based Stay Work Play is a non-profit making it easier for young people to call the Granite State home. 

Part of its approach is non-partisan, issues-based advocacy informed by statewide data collection. Take, for instance, Stay Work Play’s Policy & Pints series, which gathered young locals at area breweries for focus groups to identify barriers to feeling welcome and secure in New Hampshire. 

Unsurprisingly, housing and childcare were high on the list. “We’re not experts ourselves in housing or childcare, but we do work with partners across the state for whom this is their business,” said Will Stewart, executive director. 

Stay Work Play is supporting greater investments in the state’s workforce housing fund and advocating for the ability to build smaller units on smaller lot sizes. “Things that young families need to get a toehold here in the state,” Stewart said. 

In addition, he’s seen “a return to older models,” like employer-supported housing. Some companies are paying existing employees to house new ones until they’re able to secure stable living situations. A leading healthcare provider has also been exploring options to develop on land already under its ownership. “But they’re just one example of a company that’s looking for novel solutions,” Stewart said. 

Beyond these logistical factors, social infrastructure is a key element that’s sometimes less talked about. In New Hampshire, young residents reported high satisfaction with “being able to get out of work and 30 minutes later be on the ski slopes or out hiking or on a paddleboard,” Stewart said. But making friends or finding a date can mean an ever-expanding search radius on social apps. The need for more “third places” where people can gather organically is strongly felt. 

As small towns rise to the challenge, sharing a new narrative through effective branding and marketing is essential. Stewart points to Littleton, a rural New Hampshire town that has cultivated a buzzing downtown, food and drink scene, and outdoor recreation network. 

For potential “returners” who may not have been back except for holiday dinners, “they probably don’t have an understanding of places, like Littleton, that have changed, and to use a scientific term, gotten cooler,” Stewart said. That’s an opportunity for a redefined rural place to find its people.

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Caroline Tremblay is a freelance writer who covers Radically Rural, an annual two-day summit on rural issues held in Keene, New Hampshire. This year’s event, featuring the people and organizations cited in this story, will take place September 25-26. For more information, and to register for this year’s summit, visit radicallyrural.org.

The post Young Americans Returning to Rural for More than Just Holiday Dinners appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see?  Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week.

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Imagine, for a moment, a world in which a former U.S. president is nearly assassinated, a Republican vice presidential nominee is announced, and the current U.S. president and presumptive Democratic nominee drops out of an election occurring not even four months from now, all in the span of roughly one week. 

Oh, yeah! We don’t have to imagine, our reality really is this absurd. 

I am still reeling from the past week, but of course, the news cycle races on so my journalist brain is already onto the next question – what does all this mean for rural America? 

The most likely Democratic nominee is Kamala Harris (enough Democratic delegates say they will back her, according to an AP survey, to clinch the nomination), but the former Bay Area prosecutor doesn’t have much of a rural track record. 

However, her association with President Joe Biden, who made large investments in rural America through the novel Rural Partners Network and laws like the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure and Investment in Jobs Act, and Chips & SCIENCE Act, could bode well for rural under a Harris administration.

As vice president, Harris was tasked with being a spokesperson for reproductive rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Earlier this year, she visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, to see how the Midwest has been affected by abortion bans. The issue is likely to be a central talking point in her campaign if and when she’s officially declared the Democratic nominee. 

Harris’ other focus as VP has been on immigration. Since 2021, she’s helped secure private sector investments from companies like Nestle and Target to create local jobs in Central America in order to decrease migration into the U.S. Whether this actually worked is debatable: the number of undocumented folks hailing from nearly every region of the world who moved to the U.S. grew by half a million people between 2021 and 2022, according to Pew Research Center data. 

Lastly, Harris has worked to codify voting rights protections. She was one of the biggest proponents of the now-stalled Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act that would have expanded voter registration and access, and established Election Day as a federal holiday. 

All three of these focus areas intersect with rural interests. Abortion access in rural communities is limited because of the location of abortion clinics (and as clinics have been shut down in more red states, rural folks have had to travel even farther). Medication abortion by mail is another option for rural folks, but many states have restricted access to medication abortion and one state – Arizona – has fully prevented its delivery by mail.

Immigration has also proved to be a hot button topic, with a Gallup poll from early this year showing it as a top issue for voters. Immigration is likely to be front of mind for folks living in the rural border regions of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. 

Voting rights protections also have big implications for rural America where voter turnout is the lowest, in part because of barriers like mail-in ballot restrictions and fewer in-person polling locations. 

Rural voters are likely to be an essential voting bloc this presidential election. A 2023 survey from the Center for Rural Strategies (publisher of the Daily Yonder) and Lake Research Partners suggested as many as 37% of rural voters could be swayed by either party. 

Harris’ work as VP intersects with rural interests nicely. (In a Venn Diagram, perhaps?) Pair that with expanding the Biden administration’s work to invest in rural America, and she could make headway with some rural voters – if she chooses to pay attention to them.

The post What Would a Harris Presidency Mean for Rural America?  appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in Mile Markers, a twice monthly newsletter from Open Campus about the role of colleges in rural America. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.

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A few years ago, Sara White moved back to Harlan County, the rural Kentucky community where she was raised. 

Her home is coal county. Well, was: The pickaxes are mostly gone. Now, the closest you can get to the glory days is in a rail car shuttling through a former U.S. Steel mine, as the area’s mining history is told by automated displays of coal-dusted mannequins at the tourist trap Portal 31.

White has long known some of the challenges that come up in the region, having spent decades in eastern Kentucky as an education advocate at Berea College and, later, the nonprofit Partners for Rural Impact.

To her, students had limited vision when it came to their future education and career goals: when all you know is what’s in front of you, it’s hard to imagine what else is possible. Most of the professionals here are in teaching or medicine, which makes it difficult to see how students can turn their interests into other career pathways.

“Those are really the only mentors and role models they have,” says White, who works remotely as the Southeast regional admissions recruiter for the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania. 

“If you wanted to pursue something artistic, there isn’t a lot of demand locally for that, outside of teaching art. Even in the science fields, it’s really hard to consider being, say, a biologist, when the only person you hear talking about biology is your biology teacher,” White says.

There are other ways her home is changing though. When she was growing up, highschoolers couldn’t wait to get their driver’s licenses, for example. Now, it feels like her nephews and all their friends could care less — and even without cars, their exposure to the wider world is greater than ever.

“They don’t care because they all connect virtually anyway,” she says. “I don’t hear much from them about career planning, but if I do, it’s all about gaming and other virtual stuff.”

Her observations are particularly interesting at a time where many wonder if getting a four-year degree is still worth it. The connection between education and career outcomes is especially important for lower-income rural students, who often can’t afford to risk pursuing degrees that won’t pay off in the long run. 

What they are exposed to plays a major role in determining the pathways they may choose, whether or not that route best serves them. And rural areas are more likely to have a mismatch between the types of courses available to students and the projected local jobs of the future. 

That’s according to the Georgetown University Center on Education Workforce, which found in a recent report that a “Great Misalignment” is occurring across America, with most labor markets needing to shift at least half of their middle-skills credentials programs to accurately match projected local labor demand.

Rural areas are particularly struggling with that mismatch because they tend to have fewer educational institutions, which makes it harder for them to meet broader job-training needs as a result. 

Eastern Kentucky is one of the most misaligned stretches in the eastern United States, according to that Georgetown report — to more accurately align with future workforce demand, the darkest-blue counties in these charts would need to shift more than 70% of their credentials programs.

The Georgetown report relies on 2019-2021 IPEDS data from the US Department of Education, which means it could be missing some of the fast-track and shorter-certification programs that many rural colleges have started offering in fields like construction, welding, and nursing. 

Still, the report provides an interesting shorthand for universities and colleges to start assessing whether the programs they offer are well-suited to prepare their students for the types of careers that will be available to them.

It’s a topic that is often on the mind for Heather Davis, the director of transition services at Eastern Kentucky University, which is based in Richmond, a suburb of Lexington that borders this stretch of misalignment.

Davis works mostly with adult learners who have never attended college or transfer students of various age groups. They often joined the military, married young and had a family, or were just forced to immediately enter the workforce. 

“Regardless, the narrative is the same: I had a big life event happen, and I put myself and my education on the backburner,” she says. 

“Those who do pursue education later are either pursuing a lifelong dream or they’re working in a place that is willing to pay for their continuing education, and they know they’ll be promoted once they get that credential.” 

One example at Eastern Kentucky University: The Associate’s of Applied Science in Nursing program, which is “blowing up right now,” Davis says. 

Offering a quick path to becoming a registered nurse, the program isn’t just a good example of degree-workforce alignment. 

It also shows how colleges can assure prospective students that the skills they learn will make them hire-able after graduation: Last year’s cohort reported a 100% pass rate in national licensing exams, compared to the state average pass rate of 77% in 2022. 

“If there is a two-year degree that is lucrative here, it’s AASN,” Davis says.

She’s seen similar success for rural students in four-year programs like early childhood education, business, and social work — in fact, the university just partnered with Somerset Community College to start offering a new social work degree an hour away in Pulaski County, one of those rural counties that currently struggles with significant misalignment.

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The post Rural Student Qualifications Don’t Align with Local Job Markets appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

A new survey of small business owners from rural parts of the country shows that 87% believe it has been difficult for working parents to afford high-quality child care programs for their children.

The survey found that small businesses across the country, and especially in rural areas, are wanting to grow, said Janetta King, Midwest regional director for Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Voices, which conducted the study.

“But the No. 1 challenge that they have is hiring and retaining workers. And one of the reasons that they cite for hiring and retaining being such a challenge is the lack of access to affordable childcare in their communities,” King told the Daily Yonder in an interview. “We found that this challenge is exacerbated in rural areas,” she said.“Rural small business owners who want to grow, who want to expand, are citing lack of childcare as one of the reasons that they are unable to do that.” 

The study also found that 66% of rural small businesses say their communities do not have enough high-quality and affordable child care programs. That’s 9 percentage points higher than the general population, where 57% say that child care is lacking in their communities. Additionally, 43% of rural small businesses say that a lack of child care has had a negative impact on their ability to operate or grow their businesses, which is 5 percentage points higher than the general population, in which 38% say that a lack of child care has had a negative impact on their ability to operate or grow their businesses.

“Childcare is very expensive,” King said. “For some candidates who are considering going back to work, they look at the cost of childcare in relation to what they might be making and their job. And the math doesn’t add up. And so they’re opting not to enter into the workforce because childcare is so expensive. So it’s both an affordability issue and an access issue. And for our small business owners, it’s a competitiveness issue, especially in rural areas.”

Ashley Kingdon-Reese is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs program and runs multiple businesses in rural South Dakota, especially in-home care for aging adults and disabled individuals. 

The age at which people can do that sort of work, she said, is the mid-point of life, when many have children to take care of. 

“We really had to pivot and change even how we do everything from orientation, to their onboarding,” Kingdon-Reese said during a phone interview. “What we started doing is in lieu of or where their options are a match for daycare, and using things like co-ops with other agencies who are facing the same problems.”

Instead of working three 12-hour shifts like what is normal in the industry, Kingdon-Reese has her employees work a more traditional schedule so that they can be home for their kids. 

“Our morning meetings start at 8:15 as the kids get to school, and we set up carpools,” she said. “And we rotate. It’s been some strategizing just to make sure that you’re able to start the job.”

Sarah Rittling, executive director of the First Five Years Fund — an organization dedicated to working with Congress and the Administration to increase support in early childhood education — said there just isn’t enough child care across the board, no matter where one lives. 

“We have a lack of availability, and [it] tends to be incredibly expensive and unaffordable for families,” she said in a Zoom interview. 

Head Start is one policy solution, Rittling said. There’s also a bill called “Expanding Child Care in Rural America,” which would be attached to the Farm Bill and prioritize projects that would address availability, quality and cost of childcare in rural communities. The bill was introduced in 2023 by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and had a committee hearing in April. 

Tax credits are another important policy initiative, she added. There’s “a tax credit called the Child Dependent Care Tax Credit to help offset the cost of care,” Rittling said. “It’s in dire need of updating both in costs and also refundability in order to reach some families who need it the most.”

Rittling said people need to come together to address the issue. 

“What we do know is that despite the fact that these are unique challenges and differences, we have to come together and come up with some solutions, because it’s affecting everybody,” she added.

The post Survey: Affordable Child Care a Problem in Rural America appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

State governments across the country have been tasked with stewarding a portion of funds acquired through regional and national legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors in recent years – including the likes of Johnson & Johnson, McKesson and CVS. The settlements stem from multiple nationwide lawsuits levied against the companies for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, around 75% of drug overdose deaths were connected with opioids in 2022. That accounts for the deaths of more than 81,000 people that year. Kentucky’s Justice and Public Safety Cabinet said in their 2022 Overdose Fatality Report that a little over 1,500 people who died from overdoses in the state were found to have fentanyl in their system.

State governments and localities are using the settlement funds to try to heal communities affected by the opioid crisis and prevent others from being affected.

Kentucky has secured around $900 million from opioid settlements. Those funds have been split into two pools, with half earmarked for the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission (KOAAC) – a group specifically formed to handle the state’s use of the funds – and half divvied up among the state’s county and city governments. The first installments were distributed by the state to local governments in December of 2022. Payments are expected to continue until 2038 with no deadline in place for when funds must be spent.

Lauren Carr is an Opioid Settlement Advisor for the Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo). She assists county officials in navigating the best practices and reporting guidelines for the opioid settlement funds, which can only be used in specific ways.

“You can’t take these funds and use it for a program that was already being funded. You can’t take these funds and supplant. These funds are supposed to be to supplement,” Carr said. “Either integrate a new program or supplement the existing programs that you have – seeing where barriers are – and providing those services.”

Kentucky’s legislature has already outlined a list of possible uses for these funds in a state statute. Carr said the list – which was created when KOAAC was chartered – provides pathways for localities to take but she said it doesn’t expressly limit their use.

The Paducah Police Department, in far western Kentucky, is using some of the city’s settlement dollars to staff a new position focused on lowering recidivism for the people with substance use disorders.

Paducah Police Chief Brian Laird said hiring a deflection specialist has been a long-term goal for his department.

“We encounter folks regularly that are homeless, folks that have mental health issues, folks that have drug abuse issues,” Laird said. “So the goal was – instead of the officers continuing to respond over and over to these folks – we have somebody that can follow up with these individuals and try to get them some help.”

Deflection is a relatively new philosophy in law enforcement that focuses on keeping individuals with substance use disorders from entering or reentering the court system by avoiding interactions with police. Laird said that he’s aware of other social work positions within police departments in the state but believes Paducah may be the first department in Kentucky to hire a deflection specialist.

The position will be paid, in part, by the police department’s budget, but the majority of the funding comes directly from the city’s opioid settlement money. Applications for the position closed in April, but Laird hopes the specialist to be officially onboard by August.

Other county and city governments in western Kentucky are still trying to figure out how to spend their portion of settlement funds.

Murray officials formed a work group before the first settlement payments were received to investigate possible uses of the funding. City Administrator Jim Osborne said the city is still working alongside the Kentucky Attorney General’s office, but that no official plans have been made as of yet.

“The goal would be using the money to not necessarily just in one area of but could combine areas that are approved uses,” the Murray city administrator said. “I think the key is finding a happy medium of where best it would be used … something that’s legal, transparent and would help the community.”

Similarly, Marshall County Judge Executive Kevin Spraggs said he wants to make sure settlement funds are used in the most efficient way possible.

“We want to make sure wherever this money goes, ultimately, it’s put to the best possible use,” Spraggs said. “We don’t want to jump into something without doing a lot of research, and we’d like to do something with a proven track record, percentage wise, where the most people are being helped.”

For Carr, addressing the opioid epidemic has two major components – prevention and harm reduction. She said that many localities focus on prevention, with enacting programs like “Just Say No” to keep individuals from becoming substance users in the first place. Harm reduction, instead, focuses on helping individuals who are already using drugs.

The statutory list includes 29 potential uses for settlement dollars that would provide funding for projects aimed at helping those with substance use disorder or those who are at risk of using. These include programs focusing on supporting intervention, treatment and recovery services to substance users. The funds could also be used to educate the general public and provide training to healthcare providers, recovery specialists or law enforcement.

The list also includes things like drug-take back and disposal programs and any programs that cover the cost of administering naloxone.

The over-the-counter medicine (also known as Narcan) can be used to treat opioid overdoses in a crisis situation. Carr said that increasing accessibility to the medication and teaching the public about its use could help to prevent deaths.

“At the end of the day, a dead person doesn’t recover,” Carr said. “We all can be first responders. Whether it’s at a basketball game, at the library or at a Walmart, you never know when you may be a first responder, and so being prepared is something that will help save lives for individuals that are in active addiction right now.”

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The yearly Kentucky Drug Overdose Fatality Report said overdose deaths in 2023 dropped by 9.8% from the year prior. The 2022 report also showed a 5% decrease compared to 2021.

That comes as access to naloxone has improved, in part because of state and federal programs that support local health departments and emergency services. 

Holly Buchenroth, assistant professor with Eastern Kentucky University’s Emergency Medical Care Program, said requesting access has become an easy process.

“Any first responder agency can get access to this naloxone if they qualify and are in a rural county that’s eligible, and all they have to do is complete a training, make a request and document the usage or distribution,” Buchenroth said.

Naloxone is a nasal spray medicine that reverses opioid overdoses with no negative side effects. It’s also sold under the brand names Narcan and Evzio.

Kentucky got $800,000 last year from the federal government to dispense Narcan to first responders in rural counties. Last year, more than 160,000 units of the medicine were distributed across the state.

Scott Lockard is the public health director of the River District Health Department, based out of Hazard. He said the added resources have been a big help. 

“A couple years ago, Narcan was much harder to access, and we’ve seen much more awareness around harm reduction and the importance of getting Narcan, Naloxone out there,” Lockard said. “So pretty much there’s no excuse now.”

Other agencies, like the Pike County Health Department have fared similarly. Director Tammy Riley said, in 2021, the agency wasn’t able to distribute any naloxone kits to individual community members. Just 82 Narcan kits were distributed to the county in total.

They’ve since been able to turn that around.

“Compare that to our 2023 data, 3,500 Naloxone kits were distributed through the Harm Reduction Program, 25 Naloxone kits through first responder and community organizations, and 240 Naloxone kits to individual community members,” Riley said.

Riley said they’ve also focused on education. For every box of Narcan they give out, they inform its receiver on how to use it.

“When you see those numbers of distribution, every box that’s distributed to an individual is provided with about a five to ten minute education session,” Riley said. “We don’t just hand naloxone to an individual and say, ‘Good luck.’”

The life-saving drug is also getting cheaper. Buchenroth said that’s in part because of its availability over-the-counter at chain pharmacies.

“You can pick up a generic two pack now for about $35, so the price has come down,” Buchenroth said.

But access in rural areas could still be improved. Riley said in places like Pike County, where the health department covers a large area, it’s harder to follow up with those in recovery compared to urban areas like Lexington or Louisville.

“We need a quick response team in Pike County, so when those individuals do refuse those 911, first responder services, we could deploy a quick response team to find that individual in the throes of reversal when they’re most likely to seek treatment,” Riley said.

Other officials, like Lockard, say getting rid of the stigma that carrying Narcan involves is also an issue.

“Although the resource of the service may be here, they’re still reluctant to make themselves available to the resources that they can access,” Lockard said. “So how do we reduce the stigma? How do we do more training in the communities?”

Maria Slone is a social worker with Lexington’s community paramedicine program and works with a quick response team. She said there’s a simple way to bridge that gap: community involvement.

“They’re not going to have as many resources as we have, but how much buy-in is in their community members and their law enforcement and their courts and EMS providers?” Slone said. “What does that look like for them to have that buy-in?”

Most recently, the state has launched a website that shows a map of all the locations naloxone is available, both for free and for purchase. It’s available at findnaloxone.ky.gov.

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LEXINGTON, Neb. — Naidid Aguilera was feeling stuck.

Stuck at her job at a Tyson meatpacking plant. Stuck in a central Nebraska town after emigrating from Mexico roughly 15 years earlier with her husband. Instead of working in her dream role as an elementary school teacher, she spent her days hauling cow organs for inspection. 

Then she learned about one group’s effort to expand access to high-quality child care here, specifically for families who speak little English, through free training and help navigating state licensing laws. The classes would be entirely in Spanish, eliminating one of the single-biggest hurdles for expanding care in this town of 11,000, where 2 out of 3 residents are Hispanic. For years, it had just one Spanish-speaking child care provider.

As Aguilera dialed the phone to sign up for classes, she recalled feeling overcome with emotion because she had believed her goal of working with children was left back in Mexico.

“The only question they really asked me was why I would want to pursue a child care license,” Aguilera said through a Spanish interpreter. “My response was, ‘I want to do more than where I’m at right now at Tyson and move further in life. I’m looking for another opportunity.’”

Through the local advocacy of several organizations, the community will have nine Spanish-speaking providers by this summer — including Aguilera. Although Lexington still has a waiting list of 550 children in need of care, the town’s child care gap has been cut by nearly 100 children with the addition of new providers, according to local data. 

A nonprofit group called Communities for Kids, partnering with other organizations, began training providers after community surveys revealed the town’s need for Spanish-language child care. The group, founded in 2017, helps develop quality early care and education programs in Nebraska communities that don’t have enough of them.

“If you can’t communicate, or your culture is different, trusting a white English-speaking woman with your child — that’s a lot of trust,” said Shonna Werth, Communities for Kids’ assistant vice president of early childhood programs.

At the time, with only one bilingual provider, most Hispanic families were shuffling their children among neighbors or family members for care. It was the only way for Spanish-speaking parents to communicate with a provider directly.

Some parents employed by the local meatpacking plants worked split shifts to ensure their children were with someone they could communicate with.

“You wonder, ‘Where are those kids? What experiences are they having?’” Werth said. 

Related: Our biweekly Early Childhood newsletter highlights innovative solutions to the obstacles facing the youngest students. Subscribe for free. 

There’s a lack of Spanish-speaking or bilingual early childhood education providers across the nation, said Tania Villarroel, early childhood senior policy analyst for UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. One of the barriers to growing the child care workforce is the process of getting certified.

“It’s a resource to speak Spanish, but if you don’t have good English skills, it can also be really hard to get those degrees,” Villarroel said. “It benefits Latino children to have a Latino provider because they have the same lived experience, same heritage — it’s easier for them to connect to families, to get more family engagement.”

Recent research from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families found that Latino families across the United States consider multiple factors when trying to find child care, like schedule flexibility and whether the provider offers culturally responsive care for their children.

“Some [places] serve only Hispanic children, and they have Hispanic providers. But then other sites have no Hispanic children, and probably no Hispanic representation. So we see this sort of segregation going on,” said Julia Mendez, a researcher for the center. “There’s the families who are seeking the care and the families can’t find what they need, because it’s not available.”

Mendez said it’s common for home-based care to be of lower quality for Hispanic families, becauseif their providers don’t speak English, they have fewer opportunities for professional development or credentialing.

Boosting the quality of Lexington’s child care — not just its accessibility — was crucial, Werth said. She joined two local child care advocates, sisters Stephanie and Maricela Novoa, to implement the free training. Maricela Novoa is an early learning bilingual specialist providing assistance to early childhood educators through the Nebraska Department of Education. Stephanie Novoa, a realtor, also works with Communities for Kids and volunteers as a special advocate with the courts.

The training in Lexington began in 2021 with a program called the “Professional Learning Series,” which included 55 hours of classes on the licensing process or required skills for high-quality early childhood education. The series was taught exclusively in English – and did not attract Spanish-speakers.

Another series followed in 2022, and this time, there was a professional interpreter and headsets available for translation. The class was held every Tuesday night from August through November at the local YMCA, with free child care and food available.

“We were kind of building that foundation of [making] sure there are things that if they want to get licensed, this will be useful for them if and when they ever get there,” Werth said. “Like, let’s not just do training for the sake of training, but training that has a dual purpose. They’re building their education and their skills so that they can have better interactions with the kids they are caring for or as parents, because not all of them are on that trajectory of being a child care provider.”

Related: Our child care system gives many moms a draconian choice: Quality child care or a career

Werth said when the classes first opened, the goal was to reach five or six participants. Twenty showed up.

“Midway through the classes, participants would bring a neighbor or a friend. And so we had to close the class because it was a small room,” said Maricela Novoa. “It was just that word of mouth, that trust piece — this is safe, this is good. This is something that you’ll value.”

Next was a 10-week business class in 2023, followed by courses on parenting and safety that were provided in English with a Spanish interpreter.

Aguilera said she remembers many long days last spring working at the meatpacking plant, then attending classes in the evening.

“The classes were one after another, but at the same time that was nice because it was just all over at once,” Aguilera said. “I was tired, but it was very worth it.”

Werth said it was slow-going to license the nine women, especially when they ran into language barriers.

“Stephanie and I met with six or eight participants one night. They all brought their licensing packets, and we sat down with them to help them just try to work through that. And [it] took hours to do, which should not be the case,” Werth said.

It took several hours more to help participants navigate an online class. Most of them had little experience working with technology other than their phones. Werth recalled the library closing around them one evening as they helped participants use computers for the first time.

Maricela Novoa said the lack of Spanish materials or Spanish-speaking representatives is a constant hurdle for future providers. Even now, a Lexington resident could call a state agency for help but not get anyone on the phone who can speak Spanish.

“It does get tiring, because you’re the only person in the room saying, ‘Hey, is this available in Spanish?’ when there’s a new resource available,” Maricela Novoa said. 

Mendez, of the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families, said her organization calls these obstacles “administrative burden.”

“It’s true across the board that any barrier, like a language barrier, can keep people out,” Mendez said. “With administrative burden, you have to learn what the resources are, but first, you have to know about them. And then you have to navigate the systems to try to figure out how to get the credential or the support that you’re looking for.”

Related: In-home child care could be solution for rural working parents

Just a few years ago, Miriam Guedes was the only Spanish-speaking child care provider in Lexington. She started a daycare on her own after being a paraprofessional at the public school district’s preschool for 19 years.

She obtained her license by herself — an uphill battle, she said, with all the paperwork in English — but soon wanted to do more, although she didn’t know how. 

Guedes, whose business is attached to her house, said people started knocking on her door asking if she had room for more kids, but she could take only eight at a time. 

“People were coming in, asking for more and more and more,” she said.

She learned about the free training being offered through Communities for Kids and signed up. The training gave her business experience and the skills to expand her certification, allowing her to care for 12 children at once at her center, “Blooming Daycare.” Now she’s a mentor to Aguilera and the other women who are getting licenses.

Aguilera opened her own child care business, “El Niño Del Tambor Daycare” early this spring. The name means “little drummer boy.” It’s in her basement, recently renovated to include cribs, small chairs and a table, organizers filled with colorful books and crafts, an alphabet rug and more. Her new license is taped to a marker board at the entrance.

She enrolled her first child mid-March and now has four children in her care, in addition to two of her own children. Aguilera said she could easily see herself hiring an assistant and taking on more children in the near future.

It’s something that changed her life for the better, she said.

“When I first started taking in kids, I kind of broke down a little bit because it came full circle,” Aguilera said. “I didn’t have the opportunity to stay home with my kids. And now I get to do this. I’m so happy.”

This story about child care solutions was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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