About Lillian's Children Centre
Since opening in March 1997, Lillian's Children Centre has been dedicated to providing a safe, nurturing, and engaging environment where children can learn, grow, and thrive. Founded by Judy Kavanagh, the centre has proudly served families in the community for over 25 years.
Judy Kavanagh believes every child deserves to feel safe, valued, and encouraged to reach their full potential.
The Story of Lillian's Children Centre
In March 1997, Judy founded Lillian's Children Centre, naming it in honour of her mother, Lillian, whom she lost at a young age. Her mother's memory continues to inspire everything the centre stands for.
Judy's goal has always been to provide the same warmth, compassion, and unconditional care that she believes her mother would be proud of. She remains committed to creating a welcoming environment where children learn through play.
For nearly three decades, we have remained committed to helping children build confidence and meaningful relationships while families feel supported and valued.
Lillian's Children Centre Program Statement
Lillian’s Children Centre is an Emergent Curriculum based childcare. Our centre offers a program which is consistent with the policies, pedagogy, and curriculum set forth by the Ministry of Education. Some of the Ministry of Education documents we use to develop our program include How Does Learning Happen?; Think, Act Feel; and Ontario Early Years Framework. Since we know that children are naturally competent, curious, capable and rich in potential our goal is to create a program where children are encouraged to communicate in a positive way and to create a program that supports children’s ability to self-regulate. We want our children to explore, ask questions, problem solve, interact with peers and staff, learn and most importantly laugh. This is a goal that takes all of us who are involved in the child’s life (teachers, family, volunteers, support workers etc) to work together and create a safe, supportive environment for the children.
Exploration, Play & Inquiry
Children’s exploration, play and inquiry are important parts to the Emergent Curriculum. Programming is not pre-planned by the teachers, but is child initiated and teacher supported. A wide variety of centres and open-ended play materials materials allows for the children to explore, play with bodies and minds, learn and question. Based on the observations made by the teachers, learning can be expanded. The teachers document learning that is taking place and then are required to reflect on what they can do to continue the learning and add to the children’s experience.
Lillian’s Children Centre is committed to involving local community partners and engaging those partners in supporting our children, families and staff. Inclusion Support Services are important to us in accomplishing this. Support workers from CMHA, WeeTalk and KidsAbility are often in the centre and provide valuable assistance to our children, families and children. Together we work as a unit to provide the most enriching experience we can for the children.
Our Commitment to Wellbeing
Our top most priority at Lillian’s Children Centre is the overall wellbeing of all the children that attend our centre. We work to accomplish this in several different ways. We encourage the health and safety of our children by making sure that our centre is clean and safe from hazards, that the children are always supervised by the appropriate number of staff and by ensuring that we follow all recommendations and requirements set out by Public Health. Nutrition is also an important aspect of our children’s wellbeing. Lillian’s Children Centre at all times employs a cook with his or her Food Handlers Certificate. All menus are balanced and approved by a dietician and can be found posted in our front hallway.
Like the Emergent Curriculum approach, our program statement is a document that grows and changes to fit new pedagogy and our learning. As such, it is important that we work to document and review our strategies set forth in this statement and review the impact they have on the children and their families. Challenges, concerns and successes should be noted by the staff, the administration, and the families. Using all this input periodic reviews of the statement and the staff are needed to ensure that we are creating the best program for the children.
For a child to feel truly safe and secure in his or her environment, it is important that he/she feel loved, supported and connected to others. The sense of belonging is vital. It is our goal to create an environment where children and staff have positive and responsive interactions. The staff gets to know each child on an individual level and recognize that each child has his or her own unique abilities, interests and his or her own way of expression. We help to foster their individuality and assist them to self-regulate by teaching them, through modelling, strategies and methods to remain calm, deal with stress and handle conflict.