The Wellborn Place-based Ecology Education (PBEE) Hub seeks a coordinator (working as an independent consultant ) to implement Hub activities in the Upper Valley Region of New Hampshire and Vermont starting in 2017.
Vision: All Upper Valley pre-K – 12 schools have access to high-quality place-based ecology education.
Mission: The Wellborn PBEE Hub will provide support for the vision and operate in service to the people, programs, initiatives, organizations, schools and communities that are helping to implement the vision.
Background
Over the past two years, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation (NHCF)—through its Wellborn Ecology Fund—has supported a facilitated “community of learning, inquiry and practice” (CLIP) made up of representatives of organizations that provide professional development to Upper Valley (UV)educators on placebased ecology education (PBEE). CLIP participants include Shelburne Farms, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller and Saint-Gaudens National Parks, Four Winds Nature Institute, VT Institute of Natural Science, Upper Valley Farm to School Network/Vital Communities, Creative Lives, White River Partnership, Forest Kinder, Sullivan County Conservation District and others. Earlier this year, the CLIP identified the need for a more centralized, coordinated and focused entity to provide support for PBEE in the Upper Valley. CLIP participants unanimously endorsed the idea of creating a “Wellborn PBEE Hub,” to support the overall vision of access to high-quality PBEE in all Upper Valley schools. The Hub will be a regionally based, networked entity, serving the 61 Upper Valley communities that make up NHCF’s Upper Valley Region, with strong support from and guidance by key stakeholders and grounded in and among the people, organizations, schools and communities it serves. Vital Communities will serve as fiscal sponsor.
Governance
The Hub is governed by a seven-person steering committee (SC), as follows:
‐ Core UV PBEE professional-development programs
Four Winds’ Upper Valley Linkages for Environmental Literacy (Lisa Purcell)
Vermont Institute of Natural Science School Programs (Hannah Gelroth)
UV Farm to School Network (Beth Roy)
Forest for Every Classroom Program (Joan Haley)
‐ NHCF/Wellborn Ecology Fund (Kevin Peterson)
‐ Community elder (Sheila Moran)
‐ SAU, school or agency representative (TBD)
Steering Committee responsibilities:
‐ Develop and abide by a set of ‘operating principles’
‐ Recruit and supervise Hub Coordinator (contractor)
‐ Develop and monitor the work plan and budget
‐ Provide general oversight for Hub activities (with one SC member as the designated contact)
‐ Conduct its business with full transparency to and ensure regular communication with the UV PBEE PD CLIP and other PBEE stakeholders in the region
Fiscal sponsorship/administrative support is provided by Vital Communities.
Financing
Base funding for a three-year pilot/ period is anticipated from NHCF’s Wellborn Ecology Fund in the form of grants to Vital Communities acting as fiscal sponsor. Wellborn funding would support the consultant/coordinator (through a contract with Vital Communities), plus related activities such as the annual Wellborn Ecology Conference, newsletters, web presence, network analysis of PBEE in the region, and other activities related to the Hub work plan. Additional funding may be solicited from other sources as needed.
Key Hub Coordinator Responsibilities/Hub Functions
Support Greater Coordination among PD Providers
- Continue coordination among PD providers (content, promotion, recruiting, messaging)
- Maintain calendar of PD offerings and other events.
- Facilitate development of collaborative strategies to evaluate and deliver PD programs.
- Participate in and support the vitality of the UV PBEE PD CLIP
Promote Networking
- Organize and manage annual Wellborn Ecology Conference
- Regularly communicate with PBEE practitioners across the region (e.g. E-news)
- Develop effective ways to share PBEE content and practises across the region (e.g. listserv, web site, Google docs, conferences and courses)
- Help cultivate a connection with every UV school/district
- Support convening and facilitation of communities of practice as needed and requested (e.g. teachers, administrators, content providers)
- Enable connections and mentoring among practitioners
- Ensure quality of networking measures by:
– periodically conducting needs/gaps/redundancy analyses; and
– forging links to higher education, graduate credit & pre- and in-service training.
Gather/Store/Share Information
- Create and manage a central repository of information pertaining to PBEE
- Disseminate easily accessible good work, successful practices, effective curriculum, etc.
- Create a system for vetting and ensuring high quality of PBEE information, materials and promising practices to be shared
- Ensure quality of information being disseminated by periodically conducting needs/gaps/redundancy analyses
- Develop and maintain on-going mapping of PBEE PD capacities and needs of content specialists, schools, communities of practice,other resource groups or individuals
- Maintain focus on the Upper Valley
- Develop links to NH, VT, regional and national resources, organizations and networks
- Sustain commitment to keeping information in the public domain (where possible)
Skills and Attributes of the Coordinator
Accomplished Collaborator
- Well-articulated experience and commitment to helping others with: taking risks, thinking outside the box, and collaborating with others with different, and at times conflicting, needs and viewpoints.
Acuity for Place-based Education (PBE) and specifically Place-based Ecology Education
- A background (training and/or experience) in place-based education
- A commitment to expand personal understanding of and skill with PBEE.
- A commitment to support expansion of PBE understanding and skill in providers, school personnel and community members.
Experienced with Schools
- Understanding of strategies to increase engagement of schools with place-based ecology education.
- A commitment to increasing PBEE providers’ capacity to employ compelling place-based ecology education programming in school settings.
Event Coordination
- Experience with event planning and management.
- Commitment to strengthening a community of qualified conference leader-volunteers.
Other required skills and attributes
- Comfort with being a relatively unsupervised self-starter.
- Possession of excellent oral and written communication skills.
- Facility with multiple and appropriate electronic platforms.
- Strong knowledge of and work presence in the Upper Valley (see UV Region map)
Consultant Parameters
‐ Approximately 20 hours/week
‐ Compensation based on experience/skills
‐ Must provide own office space, equipment, computer, phone, mobile device, car, etc.
‐ Contract with Vital Communities
‐ Oversight by Steering Committee
‐ Start as soon as possible in 2017 Q1
Application Process
If you are interested in being considered for this consultant engagement, please submit a cover letter, resume and list of references to the Wellborn Hub Steering Committee. All submission should be sent by email to wellborn@nhcf.org. We will acknowledge receipt of all submissions, but please note that there may not be any further follow-up communications until mid-January. If you have questions or need more information, please contact Kevin Peterson at 603-263-8370 or email kp@nhcf.org.