Children Blossom All Year at WMCC's Child Care Center
Katharine Eneguess, President of White Mountains Community CollegeWe are nearing the end of another season in the North Country, and as much as I like the dazzling white of the spring sun reflecting off the late winter snow, I'm looking forward to seeing bare ground and crocus. This time of the year, after months of looking at leafless trees, I crave more colors on my visual palette.
We do have a place here on the Berlin campus of White Mountains Community College that is cheerful and colorful all year round. The White Mountains Community College Child Care Center, located at 15 Twitchell Lane, has all the brightness of a new box of crayons. Providing care for children from 12 weeks to 11 years-old, the Center is a NH Licensed Plus center, a United Way agency, and is currently enrolled in Self Study to become accredited through the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The Center also serves as a learning site for the students enrolled in our Early Childhood Education Program. The teaching staff is credentialed through New Hampshire's Early Childhood Professional Development System.
Officially, we have Child Development labs on-site that include interactive programs for infants, toddlers, and preschool age children. Unofficially, we have lots of delightful play spaces where our students, teachers, and pint-sized clientele can have fun together. We have a very talented bunch of youngsters at the Center, as evidenced by the lovely art work displayed on the Center's wall. Our cozy environment must surely be good for their creativity because, as good as the art work on our walls is, the preschoolers' best art no doubt decorates the refrigerators of proud parents and grandparents throughout the region.
For those who wish to pursue a career in the field, we offer an associate degree in Early Childhood Education. Besides taking the required courses such as Foundations in Early Childhood Education and Learning Environments, students can choose courses concentrating in special education and early intervention. Students may also opt to earn either the 12-credit entry level or the 25-credit Child Care certificates to begin working in the field, or to advance their employment in the field. Our program gives students a good foundation on which to build careers as childcare providers, preschool teachers, educational assistants, child care directors and more.
Our course curriculum includes the very latest research and practices in early childhood education. One of the three-credit courses we offer is Understanding Children with Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Time and time again, studies show that catching developmental delays and challenges at an early age greatly increases the chance of successful outcomes in children. We do have a few requirements for those interested in this course of studies. Working with small children can be physically challenging, as any parent of a toddler can tell you, and besides being able to lift and carry infants and small children, students should be able to communicate with children at their level. This means sitting on child-size furniture or the floor with them.
For more information on our Early Childhood Education Program go here.
The childcare center is open year round and open to the community . For more information on the center, contact Susan Blais, Director, available at 752-2409 and also by e-mail: sblais@ccsnh.edu.
Back to News List© White Mountains Community College. 2020 Riverside Drive, Berlin, NH 03570. Tel: (800)445-4525 or (603)752-1113.