bobbie dickens - learning is a family experience
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photo by steed media service
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Site Director, Pre-school and School-age Program, YMCA
Bobbie Dickens received her unofficial instruction in dealing with multiple children by growing up with 11 siblings. Anything could happen, from any direction at any time. Dickens’ childhood home was a funnel cloud of relentless activity, fun, drama, happiness, and chaos, as well as a mixture of every possible type of personality. Navigating all of those unknown variables prepared Dickens for her current position as site director of programs for preschool and school-age children at Chicago’s Southside YMCA.
“I’m from a family of 12 siblings. [My job experience] came from my family. I understand conflict and confusion, and I implement that training in my work,” says Dickens. “I got trained in [child care] growing up ... I have the patience for it. Everyone tells me that.”
Today, Dickens cherishes being enveloped in the same mass of humanity that so closely resembles her own formative years. Ironically, it’s being in the middle of many that Dickens feels most at peace. Chicago’s Southside YMCA has helped to magnify her professional prosperity through the young, impressionable charges in her care. The 14-year veteran of the YMCA, is responsible for administering a Head Start program for working families, and is in charge of over 100 children under the age of 12.
“I love what I do, because I’m helping families and I’m serving the community. [Just] as the Y’s mission [is] serving kids, families and communities — that’s what I do.” -terry shropshire
To contact the Southside YMCA, call 773-947-0700.
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