“These documentaries have created such an impact in our state, and it is good to see them recognized in competition with stations in our entire region,” said Scott Finn, executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.
The awards are presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Ohio Valley Chapter, representing video producers in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia.
Credit West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
WVPB is the only West Virginia television station to be recognized in this year’s awards.
“Jay: A Rockefeller’s Journey” documents the half-century career of John D. Rockefeller IV in his chosen home of West Virginia, produced by WVPB’s Suzanne Higgins and Russ Barbour.
“Jay” seeks to answer these questions: Why would the heir of one of the wealthiest families in America come to one of its poorest states – and stay? What influenced him and who inspired him along his journey to becoming one of the state’s most influential leaders of the last 50 years?
The first 1,000 days of a child’s life are the most important. Home visitors help parents make them count.
This week, the Front Porch podcast speaks with Michele Baranaskas, coordinator for Partners in Community Outreach. It’s a coalition of several programs that send helpers into people’s homes.
This website: www.homevisitwv.org, has links to In-Home Family Education, Birth to Three, Right From the Start, and Early Head Start home visiting programs that we talked about, as well as the Help Me Grow Early Childhood Referral Service. Families can refer themselves to all of these services.
And this site: http://www.wvpartners.org/research.php has links to research showing the effectiveness of home visiting. The third link down under WV Research includes the findings of the West Virginia Early Childhood Planning Task Force.
Families can get help for substance abuse and mental health problems at http://www.help4wv.com/.
On another note…if you are wondering who Rick Wilson has a crush on after hearing this episode of The Front Porch…here she is:
Sofia Helin is star of “The Bridge,” a Scandianavian crime series
Sofia Helin is star of “The Bridge,” a Danish crime series that both Rick and Michele love.
Subscribe to “The Front Porch” podcast on iTunes or however you listen to podcasts.
An edited version of “The Front Porch” airs Fridays at 4:50 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s radio network, and the full version is available above.
Share your opinions with us about these issues, and let us know what you’d like us to discuss in the future. Send a tweet to @radiofinn or @wvpublicnews, or e-mail Scott at sfinn @ wvpublic.org
The Front Porch is underwritten by The Charleston Gazette Mail, providing both sides of the story on its two editorial pages. Check it out: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/
McDowell native Sabrina Shrader is featured in the new West Virginia Public Broadcasting documentary, The First 1,000 Days: Investing In WV Children When It Counts. We first heard from Shrader when she shared her story in 2013 of how a program called Upward Bound provided resources that helped her to graduate from college after a difficult and abusive childhood. She was working as an Upward Bound Coordinator at Concord University. Things have changed since then.
“It’s really changed my life,” Shrader said. “Speaking out.”
When you say the word poverty, people usually get squeamish. But not Sabrina Shrader. The term “poverty” is often associated with a stigma, something to be ashamed of and often … associated with laziness.
Well it’s complicated and this story won’t cover it all or even scratch the surface of the challenges and complexities of even Sabrina Shrader’s life. It’s a glimpse into a world and conversation that’s normally taboo.
“I think there’s a good and bad in everything,” Shrader said. “Yeah, I had a hard childhood but I don’t want them to feel sorry for me.”
Shrader grew up in a home where she heard more than her parents worrying about bills. She says, sometimes arguments turned violent.
“My mom tried to protect us because she told me that when I heard my dad start fighting with her to run,” Shrader said as she wiped a tear from her eye, “and we did. I have three younger siblings and so many times I would hear my dad hitting my mom and I would gather my three younger siblings and we would climb out the window and I would just run.”
Shrader tells her story to give hope to folks struggling in poverty, and to raise awareness about resources that might exist to help those people. People like her parents.
“I just don’t want people to hate my parents,” Shrader said as tears fell down her face. “They did their best with what they had and what they had.”
Today, Shrader has became an advocate for folks in McDowell and people struggling to get out of poverty. She also agreed to be in The First 1,000 Days: Investing In WV Children When It Counts. The documentary emphasizes the importance of the first three years of life, how rapidly the human brain develops during that time, and also the challenges low income parents face.
Shrader’s First 1,000 Days
“Oh I’m sure they were really hard,” she said. “I was born three months early. The doctors tried to get my mom to abort me. I can’t imagine what my mom was going through. Here she was 16 pregnant with me and the doctors was telling her I wasn’t going to be born alive and she was going to die having me.”
Sabrina Shrader in 4th grade.
“I was born without eyelashes fingernails hair I had jaundice I was in an incubator for two months.
And things weren’t just rough at home. Shrader’s childhood friend since Headstart, Heather Wingate, remembers having to defend Sabrina when she was picked on or even attacked at school.
Settling into an Advocacy Role
Things have changed for Sabrina Shrader. She’s no longer working as an Upward Bound Program Coordinator. During the election, she helped get folks registered to vote for the Our Vote Our Future campaign. Today, she’s without a solid job but she’s passionate about continuing her role as an advocate.
Shrader was pursuing a master’s degree, but she says health issues over the past year have forced her to quit graduate school.
“My whole life I feel like I’ve been setup to fail,” she said. “I have tried so many different things five or six different ways and then it still doesn’t work.”
Shrader is now a leader of the Our Children Our Future Campaign, an organization working to “preserve families by providing the highest quality services that target behavioral health, cultural and other related needs, according to their website.”
Shrader also advocates for more mental health services and spreading the word about programs that help families like Parents as Teachers, In Home Family Education, Birth to Three, Early Head Start and Head Start. These resources are effective, but not all of them exist in many of the hard-hit communities in the state like Shrader’s.
But Shrader is resilient and she refuses to give up on her hometown.
“I love this place,” she said. “I’m a Christian Appalachian and I was never taught to give up on anything. I was never taught to give up you just keep trying and hope for the best and eventually God’s going to give you miracles, and guess what? God’s given me all kinds of miracles.”
Fighting poverty is an enormous undertaking. But Shrader says giving up, just isn’t an option.
Producer John Nakashima sits down to discuss the making of The First 1,000 Days: Investing in WV Children When it Counts.
In West Virginia, one in every three kids lives in poverty. It’s an extremely concerning problem, especially in light of research that demonstrates how poverty can effect brain development in kids—the Future of our state.
This is the subject of a new documentary West Virginia Public Broadcasting has produced called The First Thousand Days: Investing in West Virginia Kids When It Counts. Award-winning producer John Nakashima gets all of the experts to weigh in on the problem of child poverty in West Virginia, and what he discovered and has documented, is an overwhelming need of services and support for the very youngest and most vulnerable among us. Glynis Board sat down with John Nakashima to learn more about what he gleaned from making The First 1,000 Days…
Concord University is hosting a special screening of a documentary that explores the long-term educational challenges for children in low-income homes.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s The First 1,000 Days: Investing In WV Children When It Counts will be shown on Thursday at 1 p.m. at the Athens campus.
The hour-long documentary explores how poverty affects early childhood development and the challenges families face when the adults either have low-paying jobs or are unemployed.
The First 1,000 Days: Investing in WV Children When It Counts is explores how these realities are shaping the future of West Virginia.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s award-winning producer John Nakashima looks at three statewide early-education programs that help parents and caregivers make the most of a child’s first 1,000 days: the time of life when the majority of brain development occurs.
The special viewing will be followed by a panel discussion with experts. Along with Nakashima McDowell native and community organizer Sabrina Shrader will serve as a panelist. Continuing education credit is available.
The First 1,000 Days: Investing in WV Children When It Counts, premieres Monday, Feb. 2 at 9 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting television.
