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Upholding this mission, IWSE takes great pride in the outstanding care and education we provide for our community’s youngest children every day. IWSE offers services through two early childhood centers and a home visiting program. Our specialty in all programs is infants and toddlers.

Hallmarks of care include:

• An exceptional teacher to child staffing ratio (3 staff to 8 children per classroom)

• An integrated program, which offers developmental screenings for every child and provision of needed early intervention services on site

• A qualified and stable teaching staff

• Our centers are accredited by NAEYC, The National Association for the Education of the Young Child

Baby Toddler Nursery

Baby Toddler Nursery (BTN) is Illinois’ longest running licensed infant toddler center, offering subsidized, fee-based and Early Head Start programs to children from six weeks to five years of age. BTN serves 70 children each day, more than 80% from low-income families.

Teen Baby Nursery

Teen Baby Nursery (TBN), also NAEYC accredited, offers early care and education for 16 infants and toddlers of parenting teenagers, to allow them to complete their high school and/or college education.

Family Support Program

Since 2005, Family Support Program (FSP) has offered intensive home visiting services to the most at-risk families in our community. Serving nearly 50 families from birth to five, our parents and parents-to-be live in Skokie and Evanston. The core of the service provided by IWSE is to foster a healthy parent-child bond, and maximize healthy social and emotional development for parent and child alike. The program operates by providing weekly home visits and twice monthly socializations that support parenting and relationship-building with other families.

Other Initiatives:

Nutrition, Healthy Eating and Horticulture Programming

Partnering with community agencies, this initiative will embed nutrition, horticulture and healthy eating into our current programming and curriculum models at IWSE. We grow vegetables in our own garden beds, learn about planting, growing and harvesting. Teachers and students engage in activities and cooking that support healthy eating and nutrition.

Teacher Training and Staff Development

Our new 800 square foot training space located at Baby Toddler Nursery will provide resources, learning and support for teachers and staff at IWSE. Other early childhood programs in the community will also be supported and provided new tools and resources in this training space. Topics include:

• Classroom Behavioral Management·      

• Toxic Stress and Trauma of Infants and Toddlers

• Social-Emotional Development

•        Parent and Family Engagement

•        Stress Reduction and Reflective Supervision

•        Engaging and Activating the Classroom Environment

Scholarship Initiative

Through the changes in funding and eligibility requirements, working, though still economically struggling, families already in our care need increased fiscal support to meet their financial obligations for child care. From a developmental and relational perspective, we recognize the worst thing that could happen for our children would be to lose the consistency of early care and the educational stimulation they now receive. A new scholarship initiative to support IWSE families will enhance our ability to offer needed financial support to families, and ensure no child is ever turned away from needed quality early childhood education.

You can donate online via our secure server. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. Thank you!