Oakland, CA
First Step Children's Center

First Step Children's Center is committed to increasing the quality of life and enabling each child to learn and develop at their own rate toward their maximum potential.

It is the purpose of First Step Children's Center to serve the developmental needs of children and their families using a holistic approach of service delivery. It is designed to meet the needs of both children and their families.

The program works in all modalities to develop the total child. This is implemented through sequential comprehensive activities designed to promote development in cognitive, language, fine motor, gross motor, socialization, and self-help skills. Additionally, the cultural, linguistic and family dynamic needs must be taken into consideration.

The early years of a child's life are extremely important in formulating a child's positive self esteem. The fostering of this self-esteem requires emphasizing the child's strengths as well as accepting and integrating the child's linguistic and cultural family components. Working in a partnership with the family allows for the child to maximize his/her self-esteem in order to develop toward his/her full potential. The process of insuring the physical development and emotional growth must take into consideration the child's economic, health and nutritional needs. Providing for the assessment of these needs and offering the appropriate interventions must occur in order to serve the child in totality.

First Step Children's Center provides a child care center for children ages six weeks to kindergarten age, including children with and without developmental delays and/or disabilities. By totally integrating children with special needs alongside non-disabled children we emphasize the development of a non-biased value system. Careful planning takes place to provide for the specific needs of each child through the use of individual program plans and assessments. Each child is accepted as a valuable individual with strengths and needs. The program utilizes the child's assets in order to develop their overall growth in the areas of language, cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, social/emotional, and self-help skills. Daily lesson plans and activities are implemented targeting these developmental skills.

Extracted from First Step Children's Center preschool 2005-2006 brochure.

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