2010 4-Star Accreditation Essay Contest Winner – Anita Gowen
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This year’s winner Anita McGowen from Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Anita was honored at this year’s annual conference in Nashville Tennessee. She received an award at the Accreditation Reception and VIP seating with Sue Stevens at the conference luncheon. |
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Anita's Essay
“I just love Mrs. Nita,” says 3 year old Lani as she leaves each afternoon when her mom picks her up. To me, that is the best pay for a day’s work. To know that I have provided a safe and loving environment for each child in my care is worth so much more than money. I even cared for Lani’s mom when she was a little girl, along with several other parents of children in my care. Each day as I open my home to the children, I am prepared for the good and bad times, happy and sad times and all the other emotions each day brings. Knowing how to deal with these times are what being an accredited family child care provider is all about.
I began my career in child care 33 years ago as a preschool teacher in a large child care center in our town. This gave me the training and experience I needed when I decided to open my family child care home after the joyful occasion of adopting our three children. My husband and I decided to build a room for my family child care program. In setting up the room, I arranged the room according to the standards and requirements that the National Association of Family Child Care recommends. This began my quest to become an accredited provider.
It is said that children are like sponges because they absorb so much from their environment or what they are around. I want the children in my care to have the most loving, positive, and best environment each day. I want them to not only learn in our academics or preschool skills, I want them to learn self-help skills, how to be friends, and to have a positive self-esteem.
In beginning the self-study process for accreditation, I found I was like that sponge. I absorbed so much from the self-study by reading the standards, making sure I had the necessary training hours, and my environment was arranged to meet my satisfaction and NAFCC standards. This is where I found out how I had grown in this profession through the years. I thought “WOW,” I can do this.
NAFCC is an association that wants you to succeed. My self-esteem has grown through each process. Being accredited has given me personal satisfaction. I am proud of what I do each day as I care for each child. Child care seldom gets positive reviews. Most often you hear just the negative aspects of child care. Having a good reputation in providing quality child care in our community is what I strive to do.
The benefits of being accredited are many. But nothing is more important than the care of the children. Of course, if it were not for the children, we would not be needed. As I greet each child each day, I want them to feel like they are in a secure and loving environment, I want them to feel special, I want them to succeed, and I want them to have fun being a child. Another benefit is the relationship with our parents. I want the parents to leave for work or school knowing that their child is being care for as promised by me, that they are kept safe, and their child is happy. The benefit to me of being accredited is the pride I feel knowing that I do make a difference in a child’s life. I feel accreditation gives me that sense of accomplishment because I strive to maintain that high quality that NAFCC requires and the high quality I have set for myself.
Having just gone through my third accreditation, I feel like it gets easier each time. The observers are well trained and very professional. NAFCC has under gone new changes to better the program. I am very thankful we have the opportunity to be nationally accredited by an organization that really cares about the quality of child care in our child care homes.
In closing, the children are the winners in this process of accreditation, and as providers, the loving, happy, and smiling faces of the children we see each day is our reward. My favorite poem and my motto is by Dorothy Law Nolte “Children Learn What They Live.” My favorite lines are:
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.
This is so true.