Joy Hernandez

Currently, I am the director of the Hampton University Child Development Center, and Certified CLASS Observer for Toddlers and Pre-k. I have been in the Early Childhood Education field for more than 29 years. I love working with children, this has always been my passion. I still remember my first experience caring for children was volunteering in a Head Start program at the age of 12. By this time I knew that I wanted to work in the field. As an Early Literacy mentor coach, Early Childhood Education adjunct professor, mentor for the Virginia Star Quality Initiative (VSQI), the previous director/owner of Pocahontas Preschool in Virginia Beach, and graduate student with a Masters of Sciences in Education, with a major in Early Childhood Education Research from Old Dominion University helps me promote expertise and knowledge in high quality care for young children.

According to research a great number of children are in poverty and they enter school at a disadvantage, intervention should be implemented at an early stage to stop the process of failure before it begins. I train and teach early childhood teachers/caregivers to help at-risk preschoolers overcome the disadvantages of their environment and ensure that children entering school are ready to learn by providing emotional nurturing and intellectual support. I promote and support high quality care for young children in poverty and for all other children.