04 Oct Humans Of Head Start: Tiffanie

“I found out about OACAC through a friend that I was working with at another center, not with OACAC,  she had moved here and so I followed her.  I came here and it felt like a team, like a home.  It felt huge, like a big change and then I started to get to know everyone and now I walk in and everybody says hello to me, I greet everyone, it’s like a family, a really tight knit family and I stayed here for that.  I started as a float Teacher Assistant at Stewart, and then moved to a classroom Teacher Assistant, then moved here as a Lead Teacher, and now I’ll be a Child Development Specialist!  That’s something I’ve been working on for my entire time here, Liesl is my inspiration.  She was my inspiration and I knew I wanted that from that point of meeting Liesl, seeing what she did to be able to do that, and it took a lot of trial and error but I made it!  I like the problem solving of ‘this is this group of kids’ and you have to kind of put the pieces together to make it all flow.  I have gotten to create that in my current classroom and being able to say I did this, I helped create this beautiful piece of magic is awesome.  And seeing myself starting as a tiny TA, moving up and how I’ve grown is really cool to see. 

I know how it feels to be told you can’t be you, and now I get asked how I feel about how the differences in people and cultures contributes to OACAC as a whole, so I feel really proud of OACAC in that way, making sure that everyone feels a part of the team.

I was always best at connecting with the babies, and I think its one, my voice maybe; but two I’m a very calm nurtured warm person so the babies feel really comfortable with me.  And I’ve been over to the preschool side, adventuring, trying to find out what their world was about so that I could grow and I love going in there too but it’s just a different world, they have more language, of course, so they’re going to talk to you and tell you how their day was, but these little ones are a little more challenging because you have to read their cues so you have to have that relationship with the kid to be able to foster it.  I’ve stayed here because of the message that we send out, and the help that we provide for our families.  And seeing all these kids come in and out and you get to be a piece of their heart and their journey, that feels powerful to me.”