2002 MLFCCA
Week of the Provider Conference & Banquet

-Advocate of the Year-

On behalf of the providers in the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Licensed Family Child Care Association would like to announce Debra Fitzwater-Dewey as our Child Care Advocate of the Year 2002. We consider it a special honor to be able to award a person who has served the child care community so well and who has roots in our field.

Ms. Fitzwater-Dewey has probably been as successful a child care advocate as she is, because she came to her position as someone who has actually served as a family child care provider. She served as a model of professionalism in the family child care field by owning and operating a successful family child care home, Rocking Horse Times from 1989-2000. During this time she served as one of the first Mentors of MLFCCA’s Mentorship program, unselfishly offering her skills as a provider to other providers just getting started in her area. She was Child Care Provider of the Year in 1993 for Northeast Hennepin County.

As a volunteer in the child care community, Ms Fitzwater-Dewey has:

      Served as President of our State Association. She moved us into the next millennium by boldly pushing us into internet recognition with a web page. She will also be remembered for promoting and participating in the development of software that enabled providers to electronically submit CACFP claims, maintain a record keeping system designed for a child care business and offer better parent/provider communication.

      Served as President and Board Member for the Greater Minneapolis Day Care Association and modeled for us the wearing of two hats as a volunteer, always being cognizant of who and what she was representing at all meetings.

      Served as Advisory Committee Member for the Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development. Always looking for new ways to define and recognize professionalism. She fearlessly represented her beliefs in places and locations where a lack of accurate information may have made her position stressful and placing herself in confrontational situations when it was needed to educate and promote ideas that would make our professional field better in the long run. Long range goals were a strong point in Deb’s leadership and we were always proud she was representing the professional provider.

      Served as a volunteer on the Minnesota Map to Inclusive Care to develop a map for professionals, parents and providers to use to provide inclusive care for all children.

      Served as NAFCC National Perspective Newsletter Committee person, getting Minnesota achievements out to the rest of the country for recognition. She was also a validator for the National Association.

While in the past, we have usually honored as “Advocate of the Year” people who were reaching the end of their careers, I believe it would be a great disservice not to recognize one of our own. Many of us in the field become distressed when we see a good provider move out of family child care and into another field. Deb has not done that. As a person of vision with much to offer to providers and children, she saw the greater good would be served by becoming Director of MnAEYC. We need to applaud her decision and also to recognize that she is still giving to us in her new role. We can think of no one person we would feel more appropriately deserving of the role than our Past President, Debra Fitzwater-Dewey.

On behalf of the providers and children in the state of Minnesota who are in her debt for moving up as a professional in our field and for bringing us up with her, we award Debra Fitzwater-Dewey as our next Child Care Advocate of the Year.

For questions, comments, or more information... please e-mail MLFCCA

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