Wilkes Community Partnership for Children recognizes Early Childhood Teachers

Wilkes Community Partnership for Children has a recognition program for child care teachers based on observations by the Partnership staff of outstanding achievement in child care. Each month a teacher is presented with a door plaque with the teacher’s name in appreciation for the dedication to the children they serve. In February, Ms. Kelly Brewer was chosen as the recipient. Ms. Brewer is the “Kitchen Manager” at Easter Seals UCP Woodlawn Children’s Center and has been since December 2010. As Kitchen Manager, Ms. Brewer is responsible for planning menus for breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack, as well as inventory, purchasing, and other duties. As a participating center, this must be accomplished while keeping within strict guidelines and regulations for the child care food program. Ms. Brewer plans and serves lunch menus that are catered to the center and prepares and serves breakfast and afternoon snack.

Child care centers last year employed an intervention called NAP-SACC , which stands for “Nutrition and Physical Activity Self - Assessment for Child Care”. NAP-SACC was developed at UNC-Chapel Hill in response to the North Carolina Healthy Weight Initiative for Children as an “obesity prevention” model. Centers assess how they are doing compared to best practice standards in the areas of nutrition and physical activity and where changes can and should be made, then seek to implement them. Using NAP-SACC as a model, Ms. Brewer became interested in creating healthier menus and experimenting with new ideas for breakfast and snack. She attended a training last Fall sponsored by the Child and Adult Food Program of NC called “Building A Better Menu.” The training inspired her to delve further into creative ideas that would improve food quality and nutrition and introduce children to new choices. Melinda Swofford, Child Care Health Consultant with Wilkes Community Partnership for Children stated “It is important to inspire children to make internal choices toward a healthier lifestyle. We do this by introducing them consistently to healthy ideas and concepts, as well as modeling behaviors that support these concepts. Ms. Brewer is making strides toward “best practice” in the area of nutrition and we are very proud of that.”

Wilkes Community Partnership for Children, a local Smart Start agency, is a United Way funded agency.