President's Message

Message from the President,

As the new president of Chicago Metro AEYC, I am honored to have the opportunity to work with the board of directors, the Chicago Metro AEYC staff, the Chicago Metro AEYC members and the early childhood community to provide professional development opportunities and support to enable early childhood professionals to provide high-quality services to the families they serve.

I have been on the Chicago Metro AEYC board for more than 10 years and have continued to be amazed at the ability of Chicago Metro AEYC to continuously expand the opportunities for professional development not only to the Chicagoland area, but to many other professionals across 50 states and Canada. Our annual “Opening Minds” conference has grown in both attendance and number of workshops offered, the infant-toddler conference is now an annual conference, and this year we are rolling out a new initiative “Opening Minds to Connect Children with Nature” that is sure to result in many exciting and healthy projects in classrooms across the state.

I am currently the associate executive director of child development at One Hope United. In this position, I am passionate in creating child development programs that provide quality care and education to the children we serve, as well as focus on the importance of supporting and strengthening the families in the communities that house our programs. I recognize that professional development is the cornerstone to quality programming and look forward to using my passions to further the professional development opportunities that are offered by Chicago Metro AEYC.

At Opening Minds this January, Chicago Metro AEYC will launch the first Illinois Nature World Forum. This will bring together environmental stewards and early care and education stakeholders at our annual conference. This is an exciting opportunity that will truly launch our connecting children to nature initiative. I look forward to meeting many of you at the conference, and am interested to hear your thoughts about how you connect children to nature as well as how Chicago Metro AEYC can better connect you with professional development opportunities you are looking for!

Beth Lakier