The opportunity was not so much something given to us - It came in the form of someone to stand behind us, believe in us and support our decisions.
I was child care director of a child care which was part of a larger organization. Although we were all ready providing children in the community quality child care, as journeys go, we were spinning our wheels. I knew what high quality child care looked like, and we needed a push to move ahead.
And, frankly, I was stuck. Although I was an awesome teacher and a leader in the child care field, I was at best, a mediocre director. The center deserved so much more than what I was able to do on a daily basis.
Maybe it was fate, or maybe it was luck....but within the organization, there was the perfect partner for me. Laura was working in a different department, but she had the experience that I lacked. She would do operations and I would do programming. Laura and I developed a vision of what more we wanted for the children that we served. We were excited, but were cautiously optimistic. Could we sell it to the powers that be? Would it be fair to ask for this? What impact would it have on the staff, children and families that we serve? We put our heads together and came to the conclusion that our child care community needed this. It would be worth it and we would redefine what quality child care meant to our organization.
Sometimes, being part of a larger organization, getting your point across takes time. Even though we were ready to present our ideas, it took a while to get to meet with the people we needed. But the day that Laura and I finally had that meeting...we walked away getting everything we wanted. We had successfully shared our vision and was able to get the CEO to believe in it and stand behind us.
This blog will be a written record of the changes that the center will go through in our pursuit of child care excellence. Laura and I are ready for all the challenges - good and bad. We accept that we may fail along the way, but are ready to learn from that as we proceed to our goal. And our goal is simply to provide high quality child care to the families in our community.
Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a wild ride....
~Michelle
