By Marie Treichel, Provider Services Manager

Child Care Aware^® of Eastern Kansas has been providing referral services to families for over forty years, and in 1992 began providing direct coaching services to early educators.

National Tell a Story Day is Monday, April 27^th. Help Child Care Aware^® of America (CCAoA) encourage families to share the joy and value of telling stories to their children. People have been sharing stories to communicate information and connect with others for thousands of years through visual drawings, word of mouth and written words. 

Together, let’s celebrate child care providers on National Provider Appreciation Day^® — Friday, May 8, 2020. Whether you are part of a Child Care Resource and Referral agency (CCR&R), a business, a non-profit organization or a family who has relied on a child care provider, you recognize the important role providers have in caring for our nation’s children. They nurture and educate our youngest citizens while supporting parents who want or need to be part of our nation’s workforce.

Honoring child care providers will take on a more profound meaning for many this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Child care programs have been faced with many challenges: making difficult decisions about whether to close their doors or remain open to provide emergency care for essential workers, dealing with financial uncertainty, keeping informed on rapidly changing protocols, navigating financial relief programs and much more. Despite the challenges, child care providers continue to take steps to do what is best for children and families. Providers are among this country’s unsung heroes. 

COVID-19 has changed the day-to-day lives of many families with babies and young children. Some parents are seeking ideas for additional ways to interact with their children because they are now working from home or spending more time at home because of social distancing. On the other hand, some parents may have less time with their children because they are working on the front lines of the pandemic: health care professionals, emergency responders or other workers in essential businesses or services. For all families, everyday routines such as mealtime, playtime or bedtime – or even diaper changing – offer opportunities to connect with children and build their developing brains. Vroom^®, a global early childhood initiative, offers free tips to parents on how to add learning to daily routines.

I'm Tricia Howland, the Director of Family & Community Engagement at Brightside Up, Inc. I’ve been at the agency for 20 years helping parents find child care, engaging in community events and facilitating family workshops. Vroom has been an exciting addition to the work we do at the Brightside Up, Inc. The Brightside Up agency was one of the first ten Child Care Resource and Referral agencies (CCR&R) to become an ambassador in a pilot project of the Child Care Aware^® of America Vroom Partnership initiative.

By bringing Vroom to the Capital District area of Albany, New York, we were able to share the brain building benefits of play with the community we serve. It has allowed us to boost family engagement and provide information on the importance of relationship building, all while supporting the early years of a child’s development.

Brain development is a complex process involving chemical and electrical interactions. We now have decades of research describing how learning occurs and how brains develop. We have equipment that allows us to watch the brain in action and we now know about synaptic pruning.

None of that really matters to a mom who just wants to do the best she can to help her child thrive.
None of that really matters to a dad who lives for the moments that he sees his child’s eyes light up in wonder. What matters to them is that they can do something to help their child learn, grow and prosper – to fulfill the promise that exists between parent and child from the moment of birth.    

That’s where Vroom comes in.