Center for Public Partnerships & Research

10/13/2026

CPPR's Chelsea Waters and Sara Gardner loved connecting with so many passionate folks at the recent Kansas Public Health Association Annual Conference in Manhattan. Thank you to everyone who visited our table!

Sara also had the opportunity to lead a futures-thinking session, sharing strategies from our Kansas Future Fellows program to help public health and community leaders better prepare for and embrace multiple possible futures in order to create more resilient public health systems.

10/08/2026

CPPR's Jessica Sprague-Jones recently co-authored an article published in Child Abuse & Neglect, linking protective factors to home visiting engagement among new mothers.

🔵 cppr.ku.edu/news/article/protective-factors-linked-to-home-visiting-engagement-among-new-mothers

10/06/2026

Together, we're making Kansas the best place to grow older.

CPPR's Natasha Welsh-Miller, Mariah Winter, and Meghan Kluth, along with Washburn University's Jessie Piper, enjoyed the opportunity to share their expertise at the recent Kansas Governor’s Conference on Aging, exploring ways to prepare for the future of aging and caregiving, strengthen and support the care workforce, center families and lived experiences, and build more connected systems across our communities.

Thank you to all who engaged with us! And an additional thank you to the Kansans who've shared their voices with us in community conversations and beyond, informing so much of what we do.

💡 Learn more about IRIS at iris.ku.edu and Community Sensemaking at cppr.ku.edu/ourtomorrows.

10/01/2026

Happy 10th Birthday, IRIS! 🎉

10 years ago we launched a new way to connect families to services in their communities. A referral system designed to work better for everyone, supporting providers, strengthening connections, and most importantly, ensuring families receive the support they need when they need it.

Along the way, we’ve learned from providers, community champions, and families themselves about what it really takes to build meaningful relationships, harness technology, and uncover the right data to help us serve families even better.

Today:
🌱 There are currently 38 active IRIS networks.
🌱 Five states have at least one IRIS network.
🌱 More than 170,000 referrals have been sent on behalf of families.

Here’s to everything we’ve built and everything still ahead! 👏

09/30/2026

Five years of partnership. Five years of learning. Five years of making a difference for families across Southeast Kansas.

It was wonderful to bring Family Strong partners together in Fort Scott recently to reflect on everything they've accomplished in five years. From stronger connections between families and providers to new tools, partnerships, and approaches, the impact of this work is evident across the region.

To help tell that story, we shared a series of visual displays that brought five years of work, relationships, and impact into one place. Seeing partners gather around them, recognize their contributions, and see themselves in the story was a powerful reminder that this work has always belonged to the communities carrying it forward.

We're grateful for everyone who helped make Family Strong possible and excited to see how this work continues to grow in Southeast Kansas.

09/29/2026

Thank you, Taryn! Together, we're reimagining what's possible for early childhood in Kansas!

Learn more about Kansas Future Fellows at cppr.ku.edu/ks-future-fellows.

09/29/2026

At CPPR, we envision healthy, happy, thriving communities for us all. Community investment is essential if we want to make this vision a reality.

Through the Child Care Zones program, self-defined geographic areas set their own priorities and create tailored supports to address the needs of the local child care workforce and families.

CPPR is proud to support the Zones work through our partnership with the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and All In For Kansas Kids.

Child Care Zones are made possible by the federal Preschool Development Birth through Five Renewal Grant administered by the Kansas Children’s Cabinet.

09/28/2026

CPPR proudly supported the A Million Moments for Maternal Mortality Prevention Conference alongside Kansas Connecting Communities, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), and partners across Kansas.

From conference planning and speaker coordination to communications, materials development, and evaluation activities, CPPR helped create space for people to come together, share knowledge, and turn data into action.

Thank you, KDHE, for sharing these wonderful moments!

This is "A Million Moments for Maternal Mortality Prevention Conference 2026" by KDHE on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

09/25/2026

🦋🪄📖 Currently, over 80,000 Kansas children are enrolled in Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Today, we join our partners in inviting you to to ensure those readers—and the thousands more to come—never miss out on the magical feeling of receiving their own book in the mailbox and the lifelong journey of learning that follows!

🦋 TODAY!

Dolly Parton understood the importance of early literacy as well as the importance of giving back.

Today, we invite you to give back with a gift to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library of Kansas.

Your support will help make it possible for children across Kansas to receive a free, high-quality book every month from birth to age 5.

✨ Give the gift of imagination at givebutter.com/imaginationlibraryks.

💛 And don't forget to share this message. Every person reached is an opportunity to honor Dolly's legacy.

09/24/2026

The Capital Projects Fund Accelerator, together with a passionate community network, is helping Clay Center meet a variety of community needs, from child care to senior space, training and meeting rooms, a commercial kitchen, physical and mental health services, and more! 💙 Congratulations!

CPPR proudly supports these innovative community solutions through our work with the Kansas Children's Cabinet.

Learn more about Capital Projects Fund dollars in Kansas at https://allinforkansaskids.org/communities/child-care-initiatives/ .