Charlene Barbieri is the co-founder, co-owner and director of Little Learners Academy, which has three locations – two in Cranston and one in Warwick. Barbieri co-founded the organization with Kendra Tanguay. The academy provides early childhood education, as well as teaching social skills and building self-esteem.
Barbieri talks with Providence Business News about the academy’s new location and how it has handled the COVID-19 pandemic thus far.
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PBN: Little Learners Academy is planning to open a third location, in Cranston. What services will be offered at that location?
BARBIERI: We’re now officially open! Little Learners Academy opened the doors on our third Rhode Island location – Little Learners Academy of Edgewood – on Jan. 3. We are offering early childhood care and education for children from 6 weeks through school age.
Each of our locations is designed for excellence in design and are created with a child-focused vision of learning and exploring through play. Each environment is creatively designed to support the very best in early childhood education and care, which include our amenities and learning materials. This includes a beautiful library, gross motor and sensory room, art studio and industry-leading technology with distinguished amenities throughout our locations.
Our goal is to ensure each and every child, beginning at birth, has the opportunity to benefit from high-quality early childhood education, delivered by effective, diverse, well-prepared educators.
PBN: How has the organization not just remained sustainable through the pandemic but grown in size?
BARBIERI: We are determined to provide early childhood care and education to families in our communities. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of child care for families with young children.
Providing children with the warmth, attention and education they need for healthy growth and development, while allowing parents to work to support their families, our early childhood educators have a critical role in society – and we were thrilled to see that crucial role recognized by the Rhode Island Department of Human Services and other local government agencies who offered support to the early childhood education sector throughout the pandemic.
During COVID, Little Learners was proud to open two new early childhood centers and have recently additionally expanded at our Kent County location. During this time, we made significant investments in our people and our facilities. We leveraged stimulus funding to stabilize wages for our staff and introduced a wide range of professional development opportunities, paying our providers to take time away from the center to participate in job training programs or explore other pathways that could lead to certifications or degrees.
We know that our team of child care professionals is what sets Little Learners apart, and we are incredibly thankful for their resilience during uncertain times, and for their tireless dedication to the children we serve.
PBN: Getting child care has been a struggle for families during the health crisis. How has Little Learners helped families who are in need of child care services?
BARBIERI: During the initial phase of the pandemic, Little Learners Academy worked diligently to safely open our doors to first responders. We knew families needed us and we knew children needed to be with peers. We created, and re-created, our reopen plan numerous times to be sure to provide the utmost safe and secure plan for children and families. We outfitted our location with a high-performance air purification system, as well as professional disinfecting misters to sanitize and disinfect our space.
Our initial goal was to open modified hours for children of first responders to allow their parents to do their critical jobs and ease the stressful situation placed upon them. When businesses began to reopen and a sense of normalcy began to return, we expanded our reopening strategy, offering remote learning for our school age children and virtual classrooms to assist our families with learning opportunities.
We know that early investment would produce positive outcomes for our children, our families and the future of our communities.
PBN: What challenges does the organization still have in dealing with the pandemic?
BARBIERI: For the most part, our challenges remain the same: to continue to provide a safe, healthy, nurturing environment for the children we serve to learn and grow. We strive to meet our communities’ needs for child care to allow parents a peace of mind that their children are being taken care of socially, emotionally and academically. We realize that this is a critical time for children. They are growing socially, emotionally and academically, and we provide an environment that is both supportive and positive for this to exist.
During these unexpected times, the world can be a confusing, sometimes frightening place to young children. More than ever, we need our early childhood educators to implement practical guidance for helping children and families. This is why our relationships with children and families are exceptionally critical to promoting healing. A focus of our curriculum is on social and emotional development and how to care for an individual’s own well-being.
PBN: In addition to the new location, what new initiatives are Little Learners offering families?
BARBIERI: The philosophy of our programming at Little Learners Academy has always been to reflect on the wisdom of the past in order to inform our work for the present and inspire early childhood education for our future children and families. We have worked hard to offer many initiatives that support children and their families.
We added a state-funded pre-K classroom at our Cranston location in September, and we participated in the Infant and Toddler Apprenticeship Program at our Cranston and Kent County locations. We’ve also implemented STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts and math] programs at each of our locations; enhanced our remote learning options for school-aged children; and more.
Our educators, and child care providers across the state, are constantly enhancing the way we teach and deliver care. We look forward to continuing to evolve in 2022 and beyond.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
