By Josh LaBella
Voice Reporter
For Patrice Farquharson, the importance of the quality of education the city’s young receive cannot be understated.
Farquharson, the executive director of the West Haven Child Development Center, has worked at the program for 41 years. Over the course of those years, Farquharson has played a role in educating thousands of West Haven’s youngest students.
According to Farquharson, she has worked at the center since shortly after graduating from UConn with a degree in education. She said she started out as an assistant preschool teacher but, within two years, became teacher and then executive director.
“I had been helping out the executive director at the time,” said Farquharson. “When she was not here I was filling in for her. So I had a little bit of a transition. But yes, I was young when I became executive director.”
Farquharson said she has worked to ensure the teachers get the respect they deserve and that working parents have a safe place to put their children while they are at work. She said the program started out servicing students from the ages of three to five – it soon became the only place in West Haven that taught students under the age of three.
In a write-up of the center’s history and mission, Farquharson stated, “The West Haven Child Development Center believes that the family unit is the strongest influence in the life of a young child. Our program is designed to support the family by providing the child with a warm, secure and educationally stimulating environment.”
While the program has grown over time, it now has about 186 slots for students, Farquharson said the mission has not. She said the program has been accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children since 1991.
“They had developed a system where programs could be accredited so that parents would know that we had met a certain standard of quality,” said Farquharson.
The professionalism and credentials of the teaching staff are some of the highlights Farquharson said she is proud of.
“The state has recognized that teachers in early childhood play a very important role,” said Farquharson. “All the research points to what we always knew: the period between zero and five is a huge period of development and growth and brain development for the child so it’s important to have quality experiences.”
Farquharson, a lifelong Westie, said the program has many of alumni still living in the city.
“Lots of school teachers are graduates of the child development center,” said Farquharson. “Lots of people who work for UNH have been graduates of the child development center. So it’s nice to be able to see how successful our students have been and we like to think we had a part in that.”
Farquharson said through her career at the center she was able to keep herself “professional and up to date” in the field by first getting her masters in school administration and then a doctorate in child studies.
She said she wants the families to know that due to their status as a non-profit, all the money the center receives from grants go back into the program to guarantee continued quality. She said nobody working at the center are city employees.
“Mayor Johnson, at the time, had the foresight to see that, in order to not be an additional burden on the taxpayers, we are employees of the child development center,” said Farquharson. “We are run by a nonprofit board. Yes, we do pay a slight rent. But that was all part of the additional grant. But the service we provide far outweighs [any cost to the city].”
Farquharson said college students, with permission from the parents, come to the center from the surrounding universities, such as Yale, to do research, internships or work study in fields like nursing and psychology.
“We have a lot of talent,” said Farquharson. “That helps us grow and develop and give better services and understand the needs of the children better. I think that’s a big piece of what we do.”