FORT CAMPBELL, KY - April 29, 2009 -- After four months of operation, Eagles Child Development Center finally held its grand opening celebration.
Child, Youth and School Services decided to open the clinic before the grand opening to provide the much needed care to Fort Campbell parents.
"The waiting list was big so we tried to alleviate it so that the parents can go to work knowing that the children are taken care of," said Denise Gonzales, director of Eagles CDC.
The festivities included speeches by Col. Fredrick Swope, CYSS Coordinator Katy Eccles, and several parents, as well as songs performed by the pre-school and toddler age children.
Besides an entirely new building, Eagles has several other features specifically geared towards parents.
The first of which is a surveillance system in every room capable of holding up to 30 days of video footage.
A large screen in the foyer shows four cameras at any time, so parents can observe their children without the children knowing.
"Some children like to give mom and dad a guilt trip, so they cry and the parents get a little upset, but when they look at them on the monitors and the children go and play right away, they can see that the children are fine," Gonzales said.
Another is a test run of a new online payment option starting Friday.
Gonzales said she already had five parents participating in the pre-test run, and she'd received nothing but positive feedback.
"It's very convenient for them to be able to make the payments from home," Gonzales said. "You have a lot of parents where one of them is deployed, or they leave their children with a family member and now they're able to just get online and make that payment."
For Toddler Lead Tiffney Lane, the best part about the new facility is the enthusiastic atmosphere.
"We have brand new Leads who have experience within CYSS and we're able to role model behavior for the child development center," Lane said. "The new caregivers we have at Eagles, they've been so responsive and they have that willingness to learn and they're excited about it. And also the parents are so excited."
Lane added that being in a new building had its perks too. Instead of crowding everything into the classroom, the staff now had both a conference room with computers and a staff break room.
"In the old facility you had to do your parent conferences inside the classroom, but over here we have a room that's designated for training, parental conferences, as well as staff meetings," Lane said. "It allows a place away from the classroom where you can converse with parents, as well as the directors and the trainers."
Gonzales added that the parents were a big part of giving Eagles such a welcoming atmosphere.
"It's very exciting to see that the parents feel comfortable and they still want to be a part of the children's activities throughout the day," Gonzales said. "Especially dual military and single military families - they still make the time and they come over here and participate with the children."
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