This person would be my mentor. She has been consistently consistent in her quest to provide the best quality care for the children in our care. A few years ago she began by investing in her staff. She developed a partnership with United Way of Greater Richmond. This partnership allowed us to have mentors from different aspects of Early Childhood whether it is a retired educator or a college professor of early childhood education. These individuals came into our center and began to share information that would push us forward in our quest for quality. As a result of her quest she and I along with several other staff members enrolled in a local community college to obtain the credits needed to submit applications for our Child Development Associate (CDA). After completing the program together we all obtained our CDA’s and now we continue with the STAR Quality Initiative there is a push for the staff to obtain their Associates degrees.
She realized that in order to provide quality to the children she had to have staff with credentials that would allow for that provision. As a result of her passion for young children and quality education I not only pushed to obtain my CDA but obtained my Bachelor’s degree and now a pursuit of my Master’s degree in early childhood education. Without her belief and push I probably would not have pursued a college degree. However, through her advocacy efforts and investment in the staff she realized that there was another aspect that was lacking, the parents. So today, another partnership has been developed with the City of Richmond Early Childhood Initiative. She sent me to a three day course to learn how to facilitate the classes. This partnership will allow us to provide parenting classes to parents, grandparents and caregivers of children ages 0-5.
We will engage in a 15 week series where they will earn to foster positive self esteem in themselves and children and how culture and community affect parenting. In addition, they will learn how to gain a sense of personal power, handle stress and anger, establish nurturing routines and use effective discipline. I am so grateful to have such a person in my life. My mentor.
Having one person believe in you (or more!) can have such a powerful effect on someone. This is especially true for childrenm but for you even as an adult it changed the course of your life. Well done.
ReplyDeleteYes Kathleen a person's belief in you gives you a feeling of empowerment. That is the hope that I have that I will give to the children that our in our care while advocating for them and their families. I want them to feel empowered to do exploits beyond their communities.
ReplyDeleteCarmen,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story. It is amazing how your mentor ended up advocating for early childhood professionals along with mentoring. I supppose in our journey as advocates we might sometime mentor people and not even realize it. I think that advocacy should duplicate its view. Kudos to your mentor.
Carmen,
ReplyDeleteI also chose my mentor. In this profession we neeed people that can mentor young educators and we can emulate some of their professional beliefs. It is not easy to work with someone that believes in you.