I have always loved children and working with children and one day a child care position fell into my lap. Within one year I went from the assistant part time teacher to the full time coordinator of the one preschool here in town. I am young and don’t have any children or younger siblings of my own, so I do not have my own personal childcare stories, but from an ELCC student, and worker perspective here is what I have experienced thus far. Last year when I was the assistant part time worker we had all of our childcare programs running in the basement of a very old building, the entrance was tiny, and there was a set of terrible stairs leading to the basement, also our parking lot wasn’t large, and we had zero access to outside play. At this center we had a good amount of programs for preschoolers, moms and tots and new mothers. I would say that our programs at this center over the years have been well organized, and planned. Last year they had a brand new coordinator with little experience or education so we had less programs and lower numbers of people participating in our available programs. One good thing about this center is that all the programs offered are free to anyone in the community. Now this year I was put into the position of coordinator and we found a new building that is so much better for our programs and our offices! This has been very exciting in the past few months. This building is brighter, bigger and cleaner with no stairs, huge classroom spaces, big parking lots and a small park right behind our building for outside play. I have taken quite a few courses so far but my experience and confidence is fairly low due to being so young still, but I am and will continue to try my best in making these available programs organized and well planned again. Still all of our programs continue to be free and now way more accessible! In our community there are two preschools, our centers preschool runs fours classes of ten students, once a week for 2.5 hours. Though there are many other day homes that are available but they are costly and unregulated.
I think that all childcare programs should be safe, affordable, fun, loving and exciting for all children as well as mind easing for parents. 🙂
Kendra