DMN Recognizes 120th Anniversary of ChildCareGroup

September 15, 2021

DMN Recognizes 120^th Anniversary of ChildCareGroup

On September 14, 2021 the Dallas Morning News published an article celebrating the 120^th anniversary of ChildCareGroup, a Dallas-based nonprofit organization with the mission of championing a strong two-generation early childhood system that teaches children and parents, trains early childhood professionals, and assists families.

The Rees-Jones Foundation values the two-generational approach that ChildCareGroup takes in its home-visiting programs. These programs utilize a national curriculum that ensures parents are supported in order to best serve their children during the critical first years of life. The Foundation has supported ChildCareGroup since 2009 with grants totaling more than $500,000.

Below are excerpts from the Dallas Morning News article, which can be viewed in its entirety here.

ChildCareGroup has served hundreds of thousands of families throughout its history and has eight early education centers. But it was originally a settlement house, an institution that provided resources and education to the community. The settlement house, called Neighborhood House, was located on the corner of Cedar Springs and McKinney Avenue. It was the first settlement house in Texas. The eight centers now include five in Dallas, and three others — in Garland, Mesquite and Corsicana.

Former CEO Madeline Mandell said that she was impressed with the consistency of ChildCareGroup’s mission over the last 120 years. She said that since the beginning, the mission of supporting mothers in the workplace and giving children somewhere to be safe, nurtured and educated, has stayed the same.

ChildCareGroup’s emphasis on early childhood education and a two-generational approach, which supports both parents and their children, are values that have stayed throughout the 120 years of its existence.

“That has been just constant throughout and has never changed,” Mandell said “That this was seen by visionary people 120 years ago, and then still now, I think that speaks a lot for the quality and the need of the organization,”

Mandell, CEO from 1971 to 2000, also said that she remembers feeling a sense of accomplishment when she learned that children that went through education at ChildCareGroup performed significantly better than the average.

“I remember when I got those statistics, I just sat at my desk and I cried, because that was it, you know,” Mandell said. “That’s what I wanted to do, something that really made a difference in children’s lives.”