Two child care facilities open in Bangor

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BANGOR – Two newly expanded child care centers celebrated facility renovations on Thursday during ribbon-cutting ceremonies held at Eastern Maine Community College and the Penquis Child Development Center.

The existing child care facility at Eastern Maine Community College was renovated to accommodate children displaced by the closing of Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Wing Park child care facility.

Wing Park’s closing doubled the number of children at the EMCC facility, operated by the Penquis Community Action Program.

“This makes for a great three-way partnership,” EMCC President Joyce Hedlund said earlier this summer. “I don’t think any one of the organizations could have done this alone.”

The Venture Way site also was renovated during the summer and 40 children started on Sept. 5, said Jean Bridges, Penquis CAP director of Early Childhood Education Program. Improvements still are being completed at the facility, including a new parking area, she said.

The Venture Way renovation was funded by a $180,000 grant from the federal Office of Head Start, which was matched by the city of Bangor, Bridges said.

A leaky foundation in November 2005 left standing water in the basement of the 100-year-old Wing Mansion at 412 State St., in an area used to care for children. Subsequent testing found low levels of mold in the air, Jill McDonald of EMMC’s public affairs office said earlier this year. The mess was cleaned up, and while no immediate health danger was posed, the hospital was unwilling to risk exposing the children to another episode, she said.

Twenty children, mostly belonging to EMMC staff, were enrolled at the Wing Park facility in May. The facility was staffed by the Bangor Y and had about half the original number of children enrolled before the water damage occurred, said Rob Reeves, CEO of the Bangor Y. But the remaining children need a place to go when Wing Park closes.

Bangor alone has 29 large facilities, 43 small centers (that can accommodate 12 or fewer children), and three nursery schools with child care licenses that potentially could help absorb the displaced children from the Wing Park child care facility, according to Robert Steinberg, a licensing manager in the child care licensing unit of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

The renovated EMCC child care center should relieve any stress on the rest of the child care network in the area.

Offices on the third floor of Katahdin Hall at EMCC were renovated in order to move a few professors housed next to the child care center to allow for the expansion, according to Hedlund. Renovations were completed in time for the children’s first day Sept. 5. The new space created by combining the empty offices and the current facility will accommodate 30 more children.

Outfitting and structural renovation to the child care center cost $50,000 to $60,000, Hedlund said. To keep costs down, college staff helped renovate the space.

The facility, which is less than two miles from EMMC, is in a great location for the hospital staff who will have children in the EMCC program, said Connie Ronco, department chair of early childhood education-education at EMCC.

About 30 children are enrolled at the center in Katahdin Hall, with a long waiting list, according to Hedlund. The expansion doubled the number of slots available for children and now 60 children are enrolled at the facility, she said.

“We’re still working the plan. There are many, many families that are employed at EMMC,” Bridges said. “We have an obligation to provide slots for [a total of] 40 children, but it may not be the same 40.”

Any EMMC employee will be given priority when filling the 30 new slots at EMCC and 10 more slots within the local Penquis CAP centers. Other Penquis CAP facilities are located on the Davis Road, Union Street and Venture Way in Bangor. There also is one in Old Town.

Those who already have left the Wing Park facility still have the option to join the new EMCC facility. Only 10 children with parents from EMMC are enrolled at the facility, leaving 20 slots available.

“We’re about providing them a location that will give them priority,” Bridges said.

The Wing Mansion employees remained there until September, and will have priority when the new facility hires its staff, said Paul Bolin, EMMC director of employee relations. The staff at EMCC was increased by six. Any employees from Wing Park who applied for a job were given work at either EMCC or another Penquis CAP site.

“Hiring the existing Wing Park staff for the EMCC facility will help ease the transition for the children and families, seeing familiar faces,” Bridges said.

Erin Economy, director of the Wing Park program, will be reassigned within the Y programs, according to Reeves. Others will interview with Penquis CAP for the EMCC and the Venture Way site, but not all of the staffers will be absorbed into the Y programs.

Penquis CAP met with the current Wing Park staff in April to “get a feel” for the potential employees.

The EMCC center, along with all of the other Penquis CAP centers, cares for children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old. The EMCC facility also serves as a laboratory school for early childhood education students at the college. Students are required to do child profiles and activity plans. A total of 315 hours in the field are to be completed within three semesters as part of a degree in early childhood education, according to Ronco.

The new facility will give the students more opportunities to make observations and apply what they learn.

“It is a learning environment, as opposed to baby-sitting,” Hedlund said. “This is very important to us.”

The child care center at EMCC is accredited by the National Association for Education of Young Children. Having this accreditation assures the quality of child care and allows the families that use the services to acquire a double tax credit each year, according to Penquis CAP.

All three of the parties have said in phone interviews that they are excited about the project.

“I think it is a good partnership,” Hedlund said. “We all have similar goals of wanting people to have a good life; this is an opportunity to help.”

There are no long-term plans for the Wing Park building, according to Bolin. The offices on the upper levels are still there, but the immediate concern was the basement area where the child care facility was located. During cleanup of the moldy basement, the children were moved to the first floor, the water problem was fixed, and the area has been deemed safe for now.

BDN writer Toni-Lynn Robbins contributed to this report.