Mission Statement

The mission of Ravenswood Community Child Care Center is to provide a warm, nurturing and safe environment for the children and families enrolled here. Specifically, the early childhood staff seek to:

• Teach children to respect themselves, others and their environment
• Provide a safe, nurturing and developmentally appropriate environment Provide for all areas of a child's development
• Further the mission of the church with regard to teen parents and their efforts at completing high school
• Develop creativity and critical thinking skills in children
• Provide for children's social and emotional development
• Provide opportunities for staff to grow through professional development
• Extend ourselves outside of the educational realm and into the community to collaborate with families
• Provide resources for parents as needed as well as child development information
• Enable administration to act as a support system for parents and staff

During a child's enrollment, there are goals that teachers and parents set together to meet individual needs. Additionally, there are universal goals that all children will meet before leaving the center. Those goals include social/emotional, physical and cognitive skills appropriate to the child's developmental stage which teachers have focused on through observations and lesson planning. Children will have a strong basis for future school success based upon healthy relationships with child care staff. Families will have learned the importance of social/emotional development and will have come away with ways to facilitate that through their participation in the classroom, at conferences with teachers, and through Friends and Family monthly meetings.

Through a growing sense of community within the child care center, families will leave with an increased support network of other families, as well as knowledge about ways in which children learn, what can be expected at various developmental stages of growth, how to navigate the Chicago Public School system for the benefit of their child.