Event #1

The first event that I attended was during my orientation for Dr. Daycare Learning Center on September 13th, 2016.  At this orientation I was expecting to learn how the process of starting this daycare was going to go about since I had never really worked with this age group much before.  The first half of the orientation was discussing how to do paper work and the day goes for each different age group ranging from infant to preschool.  After the second half of the orientation we were introduced to the the Therapeutic Child Care Services that were offered with this daycare program.

The Therapeutic Child Care services focus on giving all children the opportunity to succeed which is something I have grown to embrace as a youth worker.  They explained to us how these services are purposely designed to "maximize the inclusion and participation of children who have special health care needs or have been dismissed from typical child care programs".  To be completely honest this was eye opening for me.  In my SPED 300 class I had worked in a bilingual inclusion classroom and that was my first time experiencing that type of classroom.  I was never really sure if they had services such as this in daycare programs for children in this age range.  At the time of this event I was unsure of how this was related to this class but it is very clear this is in relevance to our discussion to the Center for Resilience.  

When learning more about mindfulness and how the Center of Resilience implements that into daycares/schooling and I automatically thought of learning about the therapeutic services at this daycare facility.  During the orientation we learned what a safe zone is and how to/when to use one.  I feel because it was early in the semester that I did not fully understand the concept of the safe zone and how it plays into childcare up until we were introduced to the Center for Resilience.  Having a safe zone for children in any type of setting is very important and many youth workers and educators should be willing to help youth have that space.  It definitely is important, so I feel, in our society.