Defining New Horizons: Full Steam Ahead

I clearly remember the first national conference I ever attended. It could be because I know that the brain stores emotional memories first and being at my first national child care conference was a very emotional experience for me. In my little world, coming to a national conference meant that I was a part of a group of “leaders.” It meant that “I had arrived.”
It was very exciting to be sitting in the ballroom listening to the keynote speaker with nearly 800 of my peers. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know a soul there. I was among friends. That feeling was driven home when speaker Ellen Galinsky, of the Families and Work Institute, told a story about how her morning had been going. She said, “You know you’ve been in early education too long when you go to the counter at the deli and order a Sesame Street bagel for breakfast.” Laughter filled the room as many of us could imagine us doing the exact same thing. In fact, the woman sitting next to me repeated the order and said, “What’s wrong with that?” Nothing, as far as I was concerned. I would like to think that for anyone who works with children, a Sesame Street bagel is the breakfast of champions.
Fast forward 10 years and here I was at the National Association for Family Child Care’s 2009 national conference in Baltimore, Maryland and who was making a magical appearance? None other than Elmo direct from Sesame Street. I felt at home in more ways than one.
For 10 years I provided family child care in Maryland and during that time I was honored to be a part of a tremendous force of early care and educational professionals who have worked tirelessly to advance the field. MSFCCA (Maryland State Family Child Care Association) showed the same level of professionalism as they hosted the NAFCC conference, welcomed over 1,000 guests from across the globe and celebrated with 2009 award winners like Betty Bardige, Ed.D., recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Bridget Murray, Maria Otto Leadership Award, Odessa Davis, The Ruby Brunson Community Advocate Award and Anne Walsh Mitchell, Presidential Award Winner.
Keynote speaker Diane Trister Dodge from Teaching Strategies™, excitedly launched the release of the newly retooled Creative Curriculum® for Family Child Care which was highly anticipated by the field. And always a crowd pleaser, Lisa Murphy, The Ooey Gooey Lady® enthralled the participants with her humor and true tales of the joys and challenges experienced by family child care providers. I left hoping that her uplifting message reached a first time national conference attendee who could now say “I have arrived.”