Early Childhood Educator in Edmonton, Alberta

Recently, I have spent two years working with ECSD in a classroom setting as an Early Learning Facilitator. I was responsible for helping to assess children's behavioural, cognitive, motor, and speech and language development. Working with feedback from occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, as well as behaviourists and child psychologists, I would follow a plan to help each child succeed in achieving personal and social growth goals. My first year I worked with 3-4 year olds and in my second year I was assigned full-time to a kindergarten classroom. In both cases, the learning environment followed Reggio philosophies and a strong inclusionary emphasis. Prior to that experience, I have worked primarily with school-age children in an after-school care program at Oliver Centre. My time at Oliver was spread out over the course of more than a dozen years as I worked there part-time while I was a student and for shorter periods as a full-time member of staff. The majority of my experience working with children has been focusing on mild/mod to severe behavioural needs. I have worked with children that have had language and processing difficulties as well as issues with motor control. To a lesser extent, I have worked directly with children that were diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. Also, I have spent several weeks working with a child that has Down's syndrome. However, my time with those children was limited to a few weeks at a time as I filled in for primary caregivers while they were on vacation or on sick leave.