CONWAY — Carol Crockett, manager of the Conway satellite office of Child Care Aware of Northcentral Arkansas, was putting the last few brightly colored children’s books on shelves before the grand opening Tuesday of the resource center and lending library.
“These are all new,” she said. The books were divided into two sections: infants and toddlers, and preschoolers, making it easy for day care and preschool directors and teachers to borrow what they need.
The Child Care Resource Center and Lending Library in Olympia Plaza, 2115 E. Oak St. in Conway, was created to assist licensed preschool and child care providers with books, curricula, lesson plans, manipulatives for fine-motor skills and other resources for free, as well as provide professional development. The organization teaches the mandatory pre-licensing class required to open a child care facility, too, Crockett said.
Education majors at institutions of higher education can pop in to use the workroom to make copies or create projects for class. Parents can get free support from the center, too. They can call to get help with finding licensed child care providers or day cares in 14 counties covered by Child Care Aware of Northcentral Arkansas, including Faulkner, Cleburne, Conway and Van Buren counties.
“Whatever they’re asking for is what we refer. It might be a faith-based school, or they might just need something part time,” Crockett said. “Whatever it is they’re looking for, we have that in our database.”
Parents can get a checklist of things to look for in quality child care, too.
The Conway center has 2,000 items for lending, but it’s in its “infancy,” Crockett said. The goal is to keeping building the inventory.
“We are so excited to get these resources,” Crockett said. “It’s like our beginner home.
“People can access our materials now. We have something that’s really wonderful — the state Department of Education provides the curriculum for licensed day cares. We have printed it off and have supplemental books that go along with it and have them organized in topics and units, and they can check them out,” she said. “The curriculum is amazing, and it’s all done according to Arkansas benchmarks. It makes it very easy for [child care providers].”
Crockett picked up one of many individual plastic cases stacked on the shelves. The size of a small briefcase, it contained a lesson plan, a book and a printed curriculum for a lesson.
“It’s so wonderful. They don’t have to look for the books; the curriculum is already printed,” Crockett said.
The Conway resource center has a Web-based catalogue system, and providers can download a phone app to search for items and even put them on hold.
In another room of the suite, two learning centers are set up as an example. One is a science center and has seasonal items with different textures — rocks, turkey feathers, acorns, pumpkins and small samples of animal hides. A book, Acorn to Oak Tree, was displayed on top.
“We’ve already had a few people who have come through today who took pictures,” Crockett said, to be able to re-create the learning centers in their child care facilities.
A second learning center was donated by Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and the state Department of Education.
“They’re trying to help us, too,” she said.
In a back room of the suite, plastic bags called topic bags that are filled with educational items hang from closet rods. For example, one theme is a particular nursery rhyme, and it contains the curriculum, a book and a book on CD. Child care directors or teachers can grab a bag and go.
“We want to give them the tools that they need,” she said. Crockett said the goal is to make sure children are learning and “that they enjoy it; that’s high on the list.”
Crockett, who ran an in-home day care for 30-plus years, has worked for the past two years to get ready for the center and lending library’s opening. She said she has talked to mayors and county judges and visited day care and preschool facilities to let them know what Child Care Aware of Northcentral Arkansas offers.
“We were trying to make partnerships in the community, and we have done that,” she said.
Child Care Aware of Northcentral Arkansas is a United Way of Central Arkansas agency that also gets funding from grants and fundraisers. Other partners include the Arkansas Educational Television Network, First Electric Cooperative and the University of Central Arkansas. Crockett said UCA students helped set up the center, and the board of directors includes Tammy Benson, associate professor and chairwoman of the UCA College of Education.
Board member Jill Bailey of Fairfield Bay visited the center Tuesday for the first time.
“I think it’s really cool,” she said, looking around before asking Crockett how she could help get ready for the open house.
“We hope that the community sees the importance of what we’re doing and how we really are helping the preschool community have a stronger foundation by having access to this resource room,” Crockett said.
She said the open house was successful.
“We were so proud; we felt so good,” Crockett said. “It was so heartwarming, actually, to realize the community support we had and also to realize how excited the teachers were about the supplies they’d be able to check out here. They just couldn’t believe it.”
Based in Batesville, the program began in 1997, and the resource center in that city opened in 2001, said program director Debbie Webb of Batesville, who was in Conway for the grand opening. She said Child Care Aware of Northcentral Arkansas was the first nationally accredited and quality-approved child care resource and referral program in Arkansas. It is under the umbrella of the White River Planning and Development District, another nonprofit agency.
Webb said the Batesville resource center grew from 600 items to 18,000, and she expects the same for the Conway office.
“That’s our hope and what we’ll be doing, working toward that goal,” she said.
For more information, visit www.ccana.org.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.