On a recent Thursday morning, a sunny room at the Heights Community Center in Concord bustled with activity as about 20 toddlers and young kids played under the watchful eyes of teachers – and their parents.
As the children painted paper plates, played in a sandbox full of rice and put together Mr. Potato Head pieces, mothers and grandmothers provided assistance or sat on the sidelines, offering gentle encouragement. Many of the families living in the Heights are New Americans, reflected in the room’s diverse makeup.
The program is run by Family Center, a program of the Concord Community Center and Concord School District and specifically serves the city’s youngest children and their families.
The morning session happens once a week during the school year and only lasts an hour and a half, but the playtime and lessons in Family Center are an important part of early childhood development, teachers and school district officials say.
Family Center has been operating for years as a way to prepare young children for kindergarten and at the same time, connect their parents to resources in the community, including Ascentria Care Alliance and Community Bridges.
Some of Family Center’s youngest attendees who can’t yet walk or play games also watched the older kids attentively, occasionally interacting with other babies by sticking their tiny hands in each other’s faces and putting everything they could find into their mouths.
Before Concord’s elementary schools consolidated in 2010, the Family Center operated in each neighborhood elementary school. Now, it runs in three locations including the former Dame School and Mill Brook Elementary School. With the help of the federal Safe Schools, Healthy Students Initiative grant, it will expand to a fourth.
Laurie Hart, the initiative’s early childhood coordinator, said one of the most important aspects of the Family Center program is simply providing a safe space for families to come together, meet each other and build ties.
“Friendships grow at Family Center,” she said. “You have to look at all these kids and families together. There’s a community being built.”
Community-building is something that’s especially crucial for newly arrived refugee families who are learning English and still trying to navigate their new city. The New American parents who regularly attend Family Center often help the newer families transition, simply by providing translation and explaining how they can enroll their kids in summer recreation programs and public school.
In addition to building community and connecting families, Family Center provides a lot of other resources to parents. Hart said some of the most common questions parents ask Family Center teachers and each other is about their child’s development.
The years between birth and age 5 see some of the most rapid changes as young kids start to walk and talk.
Family Center teacher Jill Galvin sees the youngest kids learn a lot simply by observing the older ones.
“They get so much from watching each other,” she said.
Play time may seem unstructured, but Hart and Galvin say it’s an important piece of early childhood development, helping kids learn how to share and follow simple rules.
It takes time for kids to learn to clean up their toys when playtime is over and follow instructions, such as being quiet when the teacher signals for it.
Garvin and Hart said there is often a noticeable difference in children who are new to Family Center and those who have been attending for a few weeks or months; the ones who are accustomed to the program’s structure are much more likely to clean up their area without a fuss and follow directions.
When playtime and snack were over at the Dame School, it was time for everyone to gather on the rug for a lesson.
“Welcome to school today! We have come to learn and play!” sang out Galvin and her teaching assistants, as the children repeated her.
The older kids stood in a row up front, happily repea
Concord resident Pam Wicks has been bringing her children to Family Center at the Dame School since 2011. With her youngest son starting kindergarten next year, it’s going to be a bittersweet goodbye to the program, she said.
“Family Center has been my home since I came here,” she said.
Wicks said the program has helped her children grow and become comfortable with teachers and other kids before they entered the city’s public schools.
She added the diversity at Family Center has enriched her and her kids’ lives.
“It’s amazing to seee all these different cultures,” she said. “Where people come from and what they go through to get here.”
Wicks believes the diversity at Family Center is teaching her kids to be open and accepting to multiple cultures at an early age, an experience she values.
“To my kids, they’re the same to them,” she said. “It’s a really amazing opportunity.”
(Ella Nilsen can be reached at 369-3322, enilsen@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @ella_nilsen.)