Sherie Gifford has been selected as the 2024 First Things First Yavapai Champion for Young Children. The award is given to local champions who actively volunteer their time to raise public awareness of the importance of early childhood development and health.
Gifford has a long history of championing children that began when she started her career as the children’s team social worker at West Yavapai Guidance Clinic in the 1980s. She later became a case manager for child protective services. She has traveled the early childhood system of service providers throughout her career including working for the Arizona Early Intervention Program, Kinship Care, New Directions Institute for Early Childhood, Bright Start and Parents As Teachers.
We recently caught up with Gifford, who is the program manager for Little Learners through High Country Early Intervention dba Karen A. Fay in Prescott.
QUESTION: Why did you choose to show your support for young children and families?
ANSWER: In graduate school, many years ago, I was bothered that there was not a focus on early childhood. When I brought this point up, I was told that there “weren’t jobs in prevention.” In the mental health field, there was no clarity about what infant/toddler mental health was. Yet, in my previous work and since that time, fellow co-workers would also lament the fact that they wished that the children that they worked with had gotten services much earlier.
In 2003, I jumped at the opportunity to work solely in the early childhood field where I could work on systemic change in Yavapai County. It was wonderful to work with a variety of early childhood providers and to bridge gaps with family service providers. Bringing all types of providers together built relationships and expertise. As a social worker, advocacy is a major part of services. Oftentimes, this takes the form of education since service providers want to help the people that they work with.
Thankfully, neuroscientists have validated the importance of early childhood by quantifying that a baby is born with a brain about 25% the size of an adult brain, it doubles in size during the first year, increases to about 80% by age 3 and is about 90% by the age of 5. Most importantly, it identifies that the caring relationships that support a young child have dramatic, positive impacts on that child’s brain which will affect that child’s abilities in all areas of development for the child’s life.
QUESTION: Your actions make early childhood a priority. What inspires you to do that work?
ANSWER: This is what most inspires me: parents and their child. Parenting is the hardest job a person will have. They want the very best for their child. There are many worries associated with wanting the best for their child. I have been honored by families allowing me to join them in this all important part of their life. Partnering with them has helped me in my professional growth. It is vital that agencies, politicians and all sources of funding recognize the importance of the early childhood fields AND do something meaningful to support parents and their young children.
I am very proud of the agencies that were willing to do this 20 years ago in Yavapai County. The Best for Babies project spread from early childhood providers to family service providers who were serving primarily older children. Education grew into relationships which grew into partnerships. Early childhood support grew into local judicial support and then into statewide support with a similar project in every county in Arizona.
Funding sources grew as we campaigned for the formation of First Things First which the voters in Arizona voted into existence in 2006 and supported again when asked to reconsider funding the state’s early childhood organization. Consultation to/by Zero to Three grew our program stronger. Federal money has been granted to make it even stronger throughout our state. It has been so invigorating to see our very small meetings grow into our project now with national support. That was never on our radar back in 2004. It shows that small, local support has great potential!!! There is more work to be done and I encourage anyone reading this to figure out what part you can play in helping young children in our county!
