Why choose teacher Sherree to care for your child? Years of experience, education, professional development certifications, all relative to teaching young children.

A Child’s Place opened in May, 2017 and successfully cared for toddlers and preschool-age children. The success of this care is evidenced in many photos, videos and parent testimonials. A Child’s Place closed in March of 2020. 

A Child’s Place, RF523759, reopened on March 18, 2024 as a registered family childcare with a focus on infants and toddlers. The Certified Family specialist, Michelle Lewis-Barnes, completed a precertification visit on the same day. The plan is to obtain a CF license before June of 2024.

The Registered Family license allows care for infants, and the new cohort at A Child’s Place begins by welcoming two infants aged between three and six months. A Certified Family license allows two more infants to join in care, planned for June or July. Eventually a cohort of four very young children grow into a cohesive group until age 36 months, when the children are ready for preschool.

From birth to age 12 months, infants have many important milestones to achieve, and this happens most easily when the caregiver addresses the needs of each unique child. Children nearly the same age will have similar overall needs. Much research focuses on the importance of those years in all areas of the development. The care a child receives in the first three years sets the tone for a lifetime. The younger the child the more important the quality of the care. To achieve the best outcomes requires the best practices based on this research.

At A Child’s Place these practices are evidenced by the teacher’s Oregon Registry Step 11 and based on:

• knowledge gained earning an MS in Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education (EI/ECSE) in 2016;

• experience working as an EI specialist and as an ECSE preschool teacher for children with developmental delay, most often a communication delay;

• four years of experience with toddler and preschool age children in the prior iteration of this childcare;

• observing and interacting with other highly-qualified professionals in the fields of EI/ECSE, child development specialists, childcare providers and teachers; and

• the highest quality of professional development:

  • Positive Discipline's 12-hour online workshop Teaching Parenting the Positive Discipline Way V2  with trainer certification,

  • Hanen SPARK Communication™: Coaching Parents to Use Hanen Strategies with trainer certification;

  • Hanen's 16.5 hour online workshop, 4 "I"s to Socialize™: Coaching Parents of Children on the Autism Spectrum and with Social Communication Difficulties with trainer certification; and

  • Early Childhood Consultant and Oregon Registry Master Trainer MacKenzie Weintraub's two six-hour courses: Building Relationships and Creating Supportive Environments and Social Emotional Teaching Strategies .

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We know infants are born with personality and temperament. These are individual characteristics caregivers acknowledge, accommodate and encourage if a child is to flourish, acquiring both competence and independence. This support is a fluid effort as children grow and develop. One reason to provide high quality childcare is the urgent focus on encouraging children to achieve their highest potential. Another is more personal: the joy of knowing a child, to watch each charming, funny, bright infant and toddler in that intensely challenging journey to become independent and capable. To participate in that journey is a gift for the caregiver.
 

Best practices require safety be the first priority. To that end, the program will meet or exceed all requirements of the Department Early Learning Childcare Guide for child safety, safe sleep, health and sanitation, nutrition, rest and activity.

Beside physical safety, emotional safety at the childcare requires the caregiver achieve a safe and trusting relationship with the family and child. This relationship must be based on respect. Respect for the child, both body and spirit, as a unique being. Respect for the parents as competent adults who know their child best.

To those ends, conscious design of this infant/toddler program determined:

• physical space, open with varied spaces to play alone and with others while under constant supervision;

• daily schedule and routines organizing and structuring the predictable happenings of the day, with flexibility to meet the needs of participants and attend to the unpredictable;

• a range of activities and play, using toys and equipment that may initially require teacher scaffolding for safe and satisfying use;

• communication as a foundation of relationship, with calm, encouraging words and gentle hands a constant when interacting with children as a responsive adult;

• all aspects of the day are immersed in interaction, using the best of communication and inter- and intra-personal strategies, social/emotional awareness, and Positive Discipline strategies to avoid and solve problems;

• establishing open and positive relationships with families, founded on a shared knowledge of the best caregiving practices; and

• a requirement for families that parents attend a free parent training, online or in-person, taught by this certified teacher using Positive Discipline's Teaching Parenting the Positive Discipline Way.