by Kara Vangarderen
Jamie Basiliere certainly has her hands full working as the Executive Director of the Child Care Coordinating Council of the North Country (CCCCNC) and Co-Chair of the Adirondack Birth to Three Alliance.
Jamie was hired at the Council in 1992 as its one and only employee. Since then the agency has grown tremendously – they now have 20 employees. CCCCNC offers many different services to support both families and professionals in their goal of raising healthy, educated children. CCCCNC coordinates family resource centers in Clinton, Franklin, and Essex Counties.
Family resource centers can serve as lifelines for families with young children. In 2014, 1,682 individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and socioeconomic levels made a total of 20,740 visits to the four family resource centers under CCCNC's auspices. They attended parenting education classes and Parents Anonymous groups, had legally mandated supervised visitation with their children, received referrals to resources for basic needs, brought their children for developmental screenings, learned about maternal-child health, borrowed parenting books, and built social support. Family resource centers are especially valuable in rural areas where there are few opportunities for networking, and social isolation of parents with young children can become a serious problem.
CCCCNC also provides start up support and professional development opportunities for early childhood educators in Franklin and Clinton counties, ensuring that those with the responsibility of caring for our youngest children have the resources they need.
In addition to their perfectly aligned missions, Jamie says she joined the Adirondack Birth to Three Alliance because, "Collaboration is the name of the game. Our organizations, and the work that we do, does not exist in a vacuum; we have to make it clear to families who have young children that all of our organizations are working together and collaborating."
Jamie celebrated 25 years of dedication at the Child Care Coordinating Council this April. Congratulations Jamie!
