Each month, Early Learning Resource Centers are asked to nominate an early learning program for accomplishments they’ve recently made to spotlight on the PA’s Promise for Children website.
The following provider was nominated by their Early Learning Resource Center for the month of April 2019.
Provider: Children’s Journey, Berks County
The staff at Children’s Journey had set a goal of becoming a Keystone STAR 4 over four years ago. At the time, the owner/director, Brydie Harris, had a Master’s degree, but did not meet the Director’s Credential requirement. He eagerly enrolled back in school and went above and beyond to complete a 30 credit Early Childhood Education (ECE) program. Understanding the practices of a quality ECE program were a priority to him.
Since then, he has hired a director, Susan Reier, who shares his passion for quality programming and being an outreach to not only the children, but the families they serve.
In working toward their goal, both Brydie and Susan have taken advantage of every learning opportunity they could to implement quality changes into the program. They welcomed Technical Assistance support, came to Learning Communities, hosted professional development on-site for staff, and came monthly to Community Days for one-on-one support. They even hired two part-time staff to form a continuous quality improvement team.
They moved to a Keystone STAR 3 in June of 2016. They did not give up. They continued to work on quality program improvements and were assessed with Keystone STAR 4 scores in the fall of 2018.
Brydie speaks often about his passion for needs of the whole family. They work tremendously hard on inclusion and accept children of all needs and backgrounds into their program. They are currently serving an 89% at-risk population and are filling a great need for quality programming with extended hours in the city of Reading.
Environment Rating Scales are designed to assess quality in an early childhood or school age care group.