Child Care Provider Focus: Maria Garcia

Maria with the children in her care, alongside her husband, Luis Garcia, who assists her.

Child Care Provider Appreciation Day on May 10 recognizes all of the child care providers and caregivers who support families and help nurture children. The need for quality child care in Arizona is always high, as quality early childhood education and experiences lay the foundation for future success in school and life.

The Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) works with child care providers to ensure they have safe and functional environments available for children. More than half of these providers are nationally accredited or have at least a three-star rating through First Things First’s Quality First program, with that number growing each month. Quality First is a voluntary program that helps early care and education providers improve the quality of their programs.

DES-certified provider Maria Garcia has been a child care provider for over 20 years. She has a five-star rating with Quality First and operates an in-home child care center out of her Tucson home with the assistance of her husband, Luis Garcia.

Maria shared that her favorite part of being a child care provider is watching the children in her care succeed:

To watch the kids come when they’re little and how they grow and grow. My passion is when they start to crawl, and start walking. I watch all of their growth and how they are learning, because kids learn in different ways. They have the same goals, but they achieve them through different ways. – Maria

Related: Child Care Provider Focus: Adriana Aranda, Camila’s Playhouse

Maria with the children playing in the backyard.

One of the five key elements that Quality First assesses is providing learning environments with age-appropriate activities. Other elements include health and safety practices, skilled teachers, opportunities for active play, and teacher-child interactions.

Maria said she would like to see people from different backgrounds and ages pursue child care as a career. She added that there are many good opportunities for providers themselves to grow, as she just earned her Associate’s degree from Central Arizona College last year through DES’s long-standing Professional Career Pathway Project.

“We learn a lot about the little kids. It is a very interesting job, because we have a big responsibility, because we need to form [develop] little kids and they need to have goals and opportunities to be good people when they grow up,” she said. ”Some people think this work is like babysitting, but we are not babysitters.”

Maria and the children drawing at the table.

Become a Child Care Provider

Child care professionals provide a crucial service through safe and nurturing environments for children while their parents work, attend school, or participate in training. In Tucson alone, there are just under 400 DES-certified and contracted child care providers, but more are needed to ensure children and families have access to high-quality care. To learn about becoming a child care provider, visit DES' "Work with People You Love" child care provider recruitment webpage.