Ruth Prescott

Level III

Manager – Community Services
Metropolitan Family Services
Years in position: 9 months

In 1980, woman at my church told me that she thought that I worked very well with children and that, maybe, I should consider being a nursery school teacher. Coincidentally, she was a teacher at this school and knew that one of the teachers would be leaving. On a whim, I scheduled an interview with the director and, a few weeks later, was offered the position as a co-teacher. I had a background in education, but at the other end of the spectrum. I was a highs school Social Science teacher for 5 years before leaving to have my two daughters. I enrolled at the local community college to get the required 6 hours child development and that was the beginning of my journey.

I had the good fortune to work with incredibly gifted women, one of whom inspired me to continue my education by enrolling at Erikson Institute for my Masters. I graduated from Erikson in 1987 and returned to the nursery school as the director, a position I held for six years. While there, I took the school through NAEYC accreditation and became a NAEYC validator.

My next position was that of a Site Director at a local state university for three years. I had the opportunity to work with a diverse family population, which began my interest in cultural issues and their impact on programs at many different levels. During this time, I guided the program through NAEYC re-accreditation.

In 1996, I was hired by a large Chicago social service agency as their Education/Parent Involvement/Disabilities Coordinator for their Head Start site. This position afforded me the opportunity to learn about Head Start. While Program Coordinator, I successfully facilitated the NAEYC accreditation process. In 1999, I became the Director of the program. The program was re-accredited in 2002.

The City of Chicago awarded a grant to the agency to build out a full-day, full-year childcare site. I was fully involved in the development of the planning and execution of the project. I met with the architects, advocated for a mixed-age infant/toddler room with DCFS licensing, with the newly hired Site Director I hired staff, ordered furniture and did the work to get both DCFS and City of Chicago licensing. The center opened in 2004 with Mayor Daley in attendance at our first Open House. The center went through NAEYC accreditation and is waiting to hear about the outcome.

The childcare site is in a senior citizen independent living apartment building, which has afforded us the opportunity to create an intergenerational program. Intergenerational programming has become another focus for my professional development.

In July of 2005, I became a Manager for Community Services with the agency. In this position, I manage problems that serve families with children 0-17 years. This opportunity has allowed me to learn about Healthy Family Illinois, out-of-school-time programs, such as 21st Century and Teen REACH, create Mentor Moms program and work with other community organizations to provide ESL classes to our non-English speaking constituents.

While preparing for the opening of the Children’s Center, I received my Infant-Toddler certification from Erikson. I have received ECERS training and am preparing to become a PAS assessor through National-Louis. I am also finishing National-Louis Next Generation program which facilitated my achieving the Illinois Director Credential.

I have been fortunate that I have had the opportunity to achieve my goal of creating and maintaining quality programs for children and families. Because I have worked with diverse populations for the past 13 years, I have needed to look at culture and how it impacts every aspect of the early childhood profession. Culture is pervasive and often has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, but with the family system that we each come from. Negotiating all of the layers and helping staff that I supervise understand and accept the complexities of culture continues to be a challenge. This challenge, however, is exciting and one that I thoroughly enjoy. Helping staff, though the use of reflective supervision is a skill that I am continually using and fine-tuning.

My daughters are both married and are creating their own families. Being a grandmother is an incredibly wonderful experience. Watching my children as they parent is so rewarding. I can only hope that they learned some of their skills from me.

I enjoy reading traveling, spending time with my family and hanging out. We have a dog, PJ, who is aging gracefully with my husband and I.

Receiving the IDC:

Going through the IDC process is something that I had considered, but I did not actively pursue the credential until I was accepted into the National-Louis “Next Generation of Leaders” cohort. The process allowed me to pull together all that I have done over the past 26 years in the field of Early Childhood and to marvel at what I’ve accomplished. Seeing the “big picture” is something we don’t often allow ourselves to do because we are so involved in the minutiae of life. My proudest accomplishment, other than the IDC, is that I have brought fours centers successfully through NAEYC accreditation.

I appreciated the guidance my PDA gave to me as I moved through the process. Something that I will share with other candidates that my PDA kept telling me was to “send in everything that you’ve done” as far as coursework and workshops for the grid. I didn’t take it seriously until I realized that I wouldn’t achieve the Level III unless I sent in everything. Fortunately, the university where I received my B.A. quickly responded to my request for a course description of the courses I took in 1967-68 so they could be counted towards the credential. The IDC received these information just weeks before the January deadline.

INCCRRA staff was also very helpful. Every time I called, my questions were answered. When I was one point short on the Management side of the grid, I was encouraged to do an Assessment of Prior Learning Proposal. Permission was given the next day and I was able to submit the paper with my portfolio in the same week that permission was given.

I am proud of my accomplishment and my supervisor was very pleased and impressed that I achieved this goal.