Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa King.
Lisa, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
The Beverly Children’s Learning Center was founded in 1973 as a school providing high quality education and care for preschool age children. Since that time we have grown into program serving infants toddlers, and school age children as well. In 2013, we celebrated 40 years in the North Shore community and in 2014 we purchased and renovated a building to reflect the very best in education and environmental practice, with the assistance of a state funded grant from which we received a $1-million-dollar award towards our project. We now serve 170 children and families in a state of the art education facility located in Beverly MA.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It has not been a smooth road and we encountered many challenges. Some of these challenges involved building Board awareness and support, identifying a property within easy access to public transportation routes, as well as offering adequate outdoor space for our children, identifying funding sources, both public and private, putting together a team of professionals who would plan and build out our project, continuing to offer high quality services to our families and children without interruption while overseeing a project of this magnitude, and for the first time in our history, meeting the responsibilities of being both property owners and landlords.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Beverly Children’s Learning Center story. Tell us more about the business.
Our agency encompasses a number of programs. Our core programs are comprised of Early Education, Out-of-School-Time, family engagement, involvement, and education, and community connections and collaborations. Each component serves a unique function in further advancing our agency’s mission.
With our early education program, our educators, administrators, and families work in partnership to create an environment that addresses the physical, nutritional, health and well-being, social-emotional, and cognitive needs, as well as the diverse cultural beliefs and values in an approach directed towards the uniqueness of each individual child.
With our Out-of-School-Time program, we utilize the relationships we foster with families and elementary schools to design educational opportunities and environmental elements based on the interests and developmental levels of our older students, while continuing to incorporate cultural values. Out activities have a hands-on project based approach, created with our students and families’ input. We strive to provide opportunities that while still building on the children’s academic advancement, are fun and engaging for our students. In addition to our academic scope of participation, we also create a supportive environment in which our students can build their social skills, connections, trust, and ability to regulate their emotions. In doing so, leadership characteristics and roles are developed and fostered.
With our family engagement, involvement, and education programs, we demonstrate respect and appreciation for each child’s family through recognizing them as a vital part of a child’s education. We do this through creating integral connections for families within our programs. We have established a family council that meets monthly to have input into the agencies decisions, programs, and policies. We have implemented the Strengthening Families initiatives to build resiliency, social connection, and empowerment. We offer social enrichment opportunities and educational based programs at no cost to our families, including apple picking, trips to theatre and sporting events, family team building days, parental skill building, financial literacy workshops, and nutrition and budget friendly cooking classes. We also provide individual counseling to assist with job searches, enrolling in college classes or GED attainment, accessing health insurance, and connection to community resources for a wealth of other needs, such as housing, food, and clothing. Our goal is help build independence, while also fostering the need for social connectedness.
With the surrounding community, we have built collaborative and symbiotic partnerships, opening up our facilities to local agencies, hosting college courses and other trainings, and sharing our available resources, while also utilizing the benefits that our like-minded neighbors have to offer, such as activities, referrals, mental health services, educational opportunities, and connection to necessities that we do not directly supply to our families.
While each of our core programs stands strongly on their own, the true endeavors of our agency’s mission are accomplished through the seamless operation of their combined efforts on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. Their value in our mission’s advancement is demonstrated through our continued accomplishments within our mission’s goals and through the programmatic assessments we implement that provide the data to evaluate our programs success and to dictate its future growth.
I think what I am most proud of is the caring, compassionate, highly trained and educated, staff of administrators, educators, and support staff that we have as part of our team. We have staff who have been part of our organization for thirty plus years, which in my belief says a lot about our agency! What sets us apart is our comprehensive menu of services. We don’t just educate and care for children; we also address the whole family and utilize the whole community as a resource and partner in this process.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I think that good fortune has definitely played a role in our recent move. Timing was everything! Beverly is not a city with a plentiful choice of properties that would meet our needs. We needed access to a large onsite outdoor space as well as an indoor environment with adequate space and natural lighting, that was easily accessible to families, many of whom relied on public transportation. The space we found offered the best of all worlds with a large amount of natural outdoor space, adjacent to 2.25 acres of conservation land, more than adequate indoor space with an abundance of natural lighting, and was situated right on an MBTA commuting route. In addition, just as we were investigating the feasibility of acquiring and renovating the property, a new addendum to a housing bill was signed in by our then Governor Patrick to provide funding to assist non-profit agencies in building facilities of high quality and that reflected best practice in offering affordable access to all families in education and care services.
Contact Info:
- Address: 550 Cabot St
Beverly, MA 01915 - Website: bclckids.org
- Phone: 978-927-1269
- Email: Lisa King Director of Education & Children’s Services lking@bclckids.org Judy Cody Executive Director jcody@bclckids.org
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/bclckids
Image Credit:
Jeph Ellis
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