By Mary Leaver, Editor
Over a more than 20-year career with Oklahoma Child Care Services, Lu Ann Faulkner-Schneider has seen many changes in the state’s child care industry. She’s proudest of the way OCCS has encouraged child care providers to strive to become professionals in their field.
She was recently promoted to OCCS professional development coordinator, a position that will allow her to help child care programs across the state build a solid foundation and provide the best possible environment for children.
After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood, Faulkner-Schneider spent several years teaching, first at Oklahoma City Community College and later at West Nichols Hills Elementary in Oklahoma City.
Later, she was hired at OCCS as a child care licensing specialist. Faulkner-Schneider is the former state coordinator of school age initiatives and the Oklahoma Better Baby Care campaign. She has facilitated workgroups for the Oklahoma Early Learning Guidelines and Core Competencies for Early Childhood Practitioners. Her experience also includes managing contracts for the Oklahoma Child Care Resource and Referral Association and the Center for Early Childhood Professional Development, including Registry and REWARD.
And while she’s witnessed the many changes in the field over the years, one aspect has been consistent.
“One thing that hasn’t changed is that we still care for the health and safety of children,” Faulkner-Schneider stated.
She added while there are more facilities and more licensing requirements, there are also more resources so that OCCS can offer more professional development opportunities.
“We want providers to look at it as a profession,” she explained. “Within the last 20, almost 21 years, there has been more new worker training. The Community Development Block Grant Fund has helped us build up the quality part. The Child Care Resource and Referral Association has assisted with training and helping providers move up the professional development ladder.
“The numbers of staff and numbers of caseloads has increased,” she continued. “We do hear more about the negative side but there are greater numbers of resources.”
What she is most proud of is how seriously OKDHS and OCCS staff approach their jobs at the agency and in OCCS.
“The (licensing) requirements are nationally ranked by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies,” she said. “The monitoring is also strong, requiring three annual visits. This encompasses all programs. All staff work to make sure it’s safe for children.”
What has made state service a good fit for Faulkner-Schneider is that she’s had the opportunity to develop skills over time.
“I started as a licensing worker and have past experience as a teacher for pre-school and school age children. I’ve been able to take those skills and build upon them. You would not be able to do that in any other field. The impact we have on so many programs can help raise the bar for the entire state.”
With child care’s public profile recently raised, Faulkner-Schneider said she wishes more people knew that the goal of OCCS is to work with providers to create learning opportunities for children, not just to focus on the enforcement aspect of the licensing requirements.
“Our goal is for the child. Many people see us as regulatory but we are there to help children. That gets lost in the issues of litigation and licensing requirements,” she said. “We’re really here for the children and our ultimate goal is to help working families with access to safe and reliable child care. We all have the best intentions. Those common goals, we should keep at the forefront.”
In a division where their work is nationally recognized by organizations like NACCRRA, she is most pleased with the collaborations that happen within the state.
“We’ve been innovative and have been at the national forefront. You hear that we’re 47th in the nation in other areas, but you don’t hear that we’ve been third in the nation, first in the nation, in areas related to child care. We have a good national reputation,” Faulkner-Schneider said. “We try to collaborate with other agencies such as the State Regents for Higher Education, the State Department of Health and the State Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. We try to pool resources so that we can do more.”
Of late, much of her energy has gone toward developing the Core Competencies Early Childhood Practices. Working with the State Department of Education, the Child Care Resource and Referral Agency, child care providers, four-year schools and two-year schools, Faulkner-Schneider and the team tried to break down what a prospective child care provider needs to know when they’re entering the field.
“We met and developed the Core Competencies, which are now the foundation of child care programs. Now we can integrate that into training. When it merges, it’s exciting to me. You get the pieces to finish the puzzle,” she said. “We can connect to build a better child care system. I guess in hindsight, I’ve been working toward this. It’s all built on this foundation and it has to be strong. It’s very hard to build a program without it.”
While her focus is devoted to many professional goals, she does make it a priority to exercise and has participated in a free yoga program through the OKC Clinic. She also likes to garden.
Lu Ann and her husband, John, are the proud parents of two grown children: Jason, 34, who owns a building design company in Brooklyn, NY; and Tiffany, 29, who works for Dell in Oklahoma City. She also enjoys her four delightful cats.