The working imaginations of LINC’s pre-school makeover pros abounded with visions of curious toddlers.

What if we put the reading center there? The blocks over there? The home living center in the corner? Math manipulatives over here?

You can almost see the children who will come, ranging through this playroom that LINC was redesigning inside Kids in Christ Academy in Kansas City.

Yes, this is looking good, said Kenetha Whitmore, the assistant administrator at Kids in Christ, which is one of 18 preschools in the seven-county Kansas City area receiving LINC’s free training and consultation through Missouri’s Infant and Toddler Specialist Network.

But hold on, said LINC’s Claire Harbison. She’s eyeing a mini corridor that would be created with one possible arrangement of book shelves.

“This,” she said, “says, ‘Let’s run!’”

Don’t want that, the makeover team agrees. Kid runways aren’t good indoors.

How to get ITSN preschool support

Go online: Missouri Infant Toddler Specialist Network.

Email: Childhood@dese.mo.gov

Phone: 573-751-6793

The remaking of classroom spaces is one part of the state-funded program. Participants in the specialist network also get free training courses and hands-on consultation when LINC specialists visit classrooms and work directly with teachers.

“It’s very helpful to get that second eye . . . to point out things you haven’t noticed,” Whitmore said. “When somebody fresh comes in, they see things we didn’t think of and it really does help.”

Among the 18 centers that have signed up for the program since early 2020, a total of 182 early childcare providers and teachers have enrolled in the training courses.

The support and training aims “to level the playing field” in preparing all children for kindergarten, said Lauren Walls, the director of LINC’s team.

The program is open to early childhood providers who accept families that receive government subsidies for childcare.

“I think it’s amazing there is something like this for centers that might not have as many resources,” Walls said. “We want to make sure all children are receiving the education they deserve.”

Kids in Christ Academy owner and director Christina Puckett has run her program since 2007 and is serving the same neighborhood where she grew up as a graduate of Paseo Academy.

“My mother used to care for children,” Puckett said. “And kids I saw grow up, I now have their children. I knew their moms. I knew their families.”

This is her life’s work, Puckett said, and she is grateful for the Infant Toddler Specialist Network’s insight in making her center stronger.

The training teaches the power and magic of relationship-based care. Sessions that Puckett’s staff have taken include tips on recognizing anxiety in children, as well as stress childcare workers may feel. They’ve learned approaches to help comfort and ease children into the classroom. They’re working on better communication with families, including understanding cultural impacts and language barriers.

They’re learning how to strengthen the respect between the families and the teachers as allies in growing healthy, imaginative children who are ready for school and childhood.

“I’m all in,” Puckett said.

Standing at a tipping point

The training sessions are particularly needed now, Walls said, because stress on the labor market has many centers bringing in new staff with less experience in childcare.

The early childhood industry has long struggled for government and community support, needing help to provide competitive salaries and ease the high turnover of childcare workers.

The Rev. Al and Paula Smith, owners of Young Professors Daycare in Raymore, see LINC’s program and the state’s funding as overdue recognition of the importance of quality preschool programs.

These toddler years are crucial to the social and emotional foundations children take to public school, Paula Smith said. It’s the time a child can develop a positive sense of self.

“This is a tipping point,” she said. “We can engage children in learning and have positive impact.”

LINC’s specialists collaborated with the Smiths and their staff in Raymore like “co-teachers,” Al Smith said. They were encouraging and non-judgmental in their classroom coaching that complemented the training sessions.

“You can say how to do it all day long,” he said. “But they really show you how to do it. They literally get involved.”

After some redesigning discussions at Young Professors, the preschool took out some of the playroom’s dividers and opened the space to spread out a variety of learning centers. It gave children freedom to roam to different learning stations and still be well supervised by their teacher.

They helped the Smiths bring in new and engaging toys. They added stimulating rugs.

New things are coming to Kids in Christ Academy in Kansas City as well.

Some were on hand the day of the redesign, including new posters and pictures for the walls, and a trio of large stuffed animal toys that Walls arranged on the carpet beside the book shelf in the reading corner.

Other things are on order, like a new kid couch, some sock animals and puppets.

Just imagine, Puckett and Whitmore said as they surveyed the new room with the LINC team. Imagine the faces of the children when they see it all come Monday morning.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer

Video edited by Bryan Shepard