Care-O-sel Child Care and Education

Child Care

Care-O-sel Child Care and Education is a non-profit, charitable, non-sectarian, interracial and non-political organization. Our purpose is to provide education and full-day care that benefits the child, the parent and the community, while in full compliance with state license requirements. Read more...

IMPORTANT NOTICE - May 1, 2020

CARE-O-SEL WILL BE CLOSED UNTIL MAY 30TH in compliance with most recent, statewide extended Stay-At-Home orders.

Emergency Care Status
Our center is reassessing the number of essential workers in need of child care to see if we will now qualify for emergency child care status. Until such time the center will remained closed in compliance with the recent shut-down order until May 30th
Please watch our website and Facebook page for news of reopening and help with resources.

Check care-o-sel.com for listed resources that may be helpful during this shut down, look under Family Support Services.

This is the most important time to stay at home and avoid contact with contagious people. We are entering the peak time of the spread of this deadly disease. Keep your loved ones safe. Shelter in place and help end this crisis.

Visit our Facebook page for tips, activities and information about staying at home during this Stay-At-Home order

The Care-O-sel Foundation
We are excited to offer this great opportunity to keep our community strong by investing in our children and families. A donation to the Care-O-sel Foundation insures that state funded programs that help the homeless, teen parents, the working poor and victims of domestic violence will not lapse when state payments are delayed. Care-O-sel is a nonprofit charitable 501 C3 organization and your donation is tax deductible.

- Care-O-sel Foundation.com
- Fact Sheet (pdf)
- Foundation Levels of Giving (pdf)

Services

We meet the education and child care needs of the early childhood community, contribute to a wholesome local environment and provide a setting where people of various religious and ethnic backgrounds can work together for the early childhood community.

Family support services in Macoupin, Montgomery and Sangamon counties are organized into 15 categories of help they provide. Read more...

Education

The world of early childhood education begins at birth and extends to eight years of age. Programs: Birth to 3 Prevention Initiative, Pre-Kindergarten for All, Virden Center for Young Children, Head Start and others. Read more...

- Care-O-sel Photo Gallery

- Join us on Facebook.

IN THE NEWS:
Care-O-sel in Virden celebrates 30 years of serving community. (By Tamara Browning, Staff Writer, The State Journal-Register)

"Cain founded Care-O-sel initially as a day care center serving 18 families with two staff. It opened its doors Oct. 6, 1986, after Cain took the initiative to provide an organization that would be inclusive of all children..." Read more...

Advocacy

State Senator Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) visited the Care-O-Sel childcare and education center in Virden.

“These programs allow parents to continue working, going to school and providing for their families,” said Manar. “Legislators from both sides of the aisle have agreed that we must keep these opportunities available so that we don’t force families across the state into difficult situations.” Read more...

The Care-O-sel web site has information to help you contact your legislators, sample letters written to local and key legislators, action alerts, sample handouts for programs to use for advocacy efforts and letter templates.

- Illinois General Assembly
- Illinois Legislator Locator

Templates can be printed - ready for you to send to your legislators. The letter, when folded two times, makes it's own envelope, Add the legislators name and address, as well as the return address, and it can be stamped and mailed. For more info...

About Us

Care-O-sel Child Care and Education sprang literally from a field of dreams. Janice Lowder Cain wanted to create a space where children could learn and discover through play. She purchased the land on the north edge of Virden in the1986. The center was built that summer and opened it's doors on October 6, 1986. There were 12 students with 1 teacher and her aid.

A collaboration was formed in 1989 when the Care-O-sel subcontracted the Prekindergarten-At-Risk Program from the local school district. Two teachers and two aides were hired to provide forty-five children with preschool classes. Room for the program at the center was created by moving the school age portion of the program to the Virden Elementary School.

All special needs children - three, four and five - moved to the Care-O-sel center with their teacher and aid in 1992. This inclusion was supported by the State Board of Education. A teaching team was formed from the child care workers, the prekindergarten staff and the special education teachers.

Accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children was achieved in 1994. The program was one of the first 300 in the State of Illinois to be accredited. This honor attests to the high quality of care and education children and their families receive through Care-O-sel.

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