Amy Haughton’s Love of Childcare
/By Emma Kushnir, WorkStory Ambassador
Amy Haughton has always loved working with young children. Since Amy herself was a child in daycare, she loved to see the children around her grow and develop. She realized she wanted to work with children early on, from the strong and positive relationships with the younger infants at the daycare with her. That is why she attended St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ontario, for Registered Early Childhood Education. After working in the field for 15 months, she secured a job at Westport Child Care, in Westport, Ontario. As a Registered Early Childhood Educator (RECE), she works with children from the age of 12 months to school age. At Westport Child Care she is working with a focus on infants. The goals of an RECE are “assessing the children’s developmental needs and stages in all developmental domains. To design programming to address children’s identified needs, stages of development, and most importantly their interests, where children can be actively engaged. To provide an enriched, positive, safe and caring environment for play and activities that help children make developmental progress. Create a positive rapport with parents, children and coworkers and always report to the parents about their progress.”
Amy says the thing she loves most about the job is that she is making a difference in a child’s life. Whether it is teaching them something new or building a positive and lasting relationship with the parents and children. “Walking into work everyday and seeing that the children have been waiting for me, with their smiling faces, is so fulfilling.” She indulges that “this career can be very challenging and mentally draining, but there is so much that makes it worth it. Watching a child grow in developmental domains that they had previously been struggling with, or teaching a child something new that they are so proud to show there parents, makes the job so worthwhile.”
She explains that through her life, many people encouraged her to work in the career. Many peers and family members would tell her she wasn’t only good with children but also bonded with them quickly, making childcare something she should do for a career. The hardest decision for her was what career she wanted to go into whether it be Child and Youth Worker, or Early Childhood Educator.
Amy’s advice for people figuring out what they want to do is: “if you really want to work with children, consider all the types of fields you can go into, whether it be working with early years or older school age children – child and youth worker, social worker, autism and behavioural science, and so on. This career is very challenging, mentally draining, it has its ups and downs, but it is all completely worth it when there is such a great positive outcome. This career is a learning process, and it’s different and exciting every day.”
