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2002 MLFCCA
Week of the Provider Conference & Banquet
-Advocate of the Year-
On behalf of the providers in the State of Minnesota,
the Minnesota Licensed Family Child Care Association would like to announce
Debra Fitzwater-Dewey as our Child Care Advocate of the Year 2002. We consider
it a special honor to be able to award a person who has served the child care
community so well and who has roots in our field.
Ms. Fitzwater-Dewey has probably been as successful a
child care advocate as she is, because she came to her position as someone who
has actually served as a family child care provider. She served as a model of
professionalism in the family child care field by owning and operating a
successful family child care home, Rocking Horse Times from 1989-2000. During
this time she served as one of the first Mentors of MLFCCA’s Mentorship program,
unselfishly offering her skills as a provider to other providers just getting
started in her area. She was Child Care Provider of the Year in 1993 for
Northeast Hennepin County.
As a volunteer in the child care community, Ms Fitzwater-Dewey
has:
Served as President of our State Association. She moved us into
the next millennium by boldly pushing us into internet recognition with a web
page. She will also be remembered for promoting and participating in the
development of software that enabled providers to electronically submit CACFP
claims, maintain a record keeping system designed for a child care business and
offer better parent/provider communication.
Served as President and Board Member for the Greater
Minneapolis Day Care Association and modeled for us the wearing of two hats as a
volunteer, always being cognizant of who and what she was representing at all
meetings.
Served as Advisory Committee Member for the Institute for Early
Childhood Professional Development. Always looking for new ways to define and
recognize professionalism. She fearlessly represented her beliefs in places and
locations where a lack of accurate information may have made her position
stressful and placing herself in confrontational situations when it was needed
to educate and promote ideas that would make our professional field better in
the long run. Long range goals were a strong point in Deb’s leadership and we
were always proud she was representing the professional provider.
Served as a volunteer on the Minnesota Map to Inclusive Care to
develop a map for professionals, parents and providers to use to provide
inclusive care for all children.
Served as NAFCC National Perspective Newsletter Committee
person, getting Minnesota achievements out to the rest of the country for
recognition. She was also a validator for the National Association.
While in the past, we have
usually honored as “Advocate of the Year” people who were reaching the end of
their careers, I believe it would be a great disservice not to recognize one of
our own. Many of us in the field become distressed when we see a good provider
move out of family child care and into another field. Deb has not done that. As
a person of vision with much to offer to providers and children, she saw the
greater good would be served by becoming Director of MnAEYC. We need to applaud
her decision and also to recognize that she is still giving to us in her new
role. We can think of no one person we would feel more appropriately deserving
of the role than our Past President, Debra Fitzwater-Dewey.
On behalf of the providers
and children in the state of Minnesota who are in her debt for moving up as a
professional in our field and for bringing us up with her, we award Debra
Fitzwater-Dewey as our next Child Care Advocate of the Year.
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