Kara Villeneuve was born and raised in Espanola, and community has always been her compass. At 17, she knew she wanted to work with kids and enrolled in a Youth & Child Worker program. Right after graduating, she found out she was expecting. She moved home, took a job in local child care, and never looked anywhere else.

She spent ten years in a centre, helping shape little humans who sometimes spent more waking hours with her than with their own families. She sees that as a huge responsibility: coaching children through everything from jumping with two feet to coping with hard days and building resilience.

The payoff came slowly, then all at once. Kids she hadn’t seen since preschool, now in their late teens and early twenties, started stopping her around town to share what they remembered. Often, it was the little things that stuck with them. One of them had worn knee-high socks with his shorts every single day.

When COVID cut family contact down to nothing, she realized how much she needed it. The five or ten minutes at pick-up and drop-off had been her favourite part of the job. So she moved to EarlyON, where caregivers stay in the room, and it reignited her passion. The move gave her the opportunity to support not only children but their parents and caregivers, too. As a Family Resource Worker, she supported the whole household, and through the Welcome Baby program she walked alongside parents through their baby’s first year.

Some would tell her at the end of it, “If I hadn’t had you in that first year, I don’t know how I would have survived.” Those words meant even more because Kara could relate to many of the families she worked with. She’d been a 21-year-old mom with little support herself.

This fall, Kara stepped into a new role as Coordinator of Family Services & Community Initiatives, bringing her years of experience with children and families to the whole organization. She’s seen the field change a lot since she started. The shift has been toward child-led learning and more recognition, and when educators feel valued, she says, they give even more of themselves. That experience has also shaped the advice she gives to educators who are just starting out: