“My mother used to joke that when I was very young, I was reading her parenting magazines, and I was giving her parenting tips as a child,” Melissa “Missy” Tarjick recalls.

Today, Tarjick is still sharing ideas with parents. She’s a priority populations case manager at the Gladys Allen Brigham Community Center in Pittsfield, Mass., as well as a member of the third cohort of Strategies for Children’s Advocacy Network, where she is exploring ways to provide better support for children and families. 

For Tarjick, the excitement of working in early education comes from seeing how quickly children grow. 

“Infants and toddlers have always been fascinating to me,” she says. “Their growth and development, especially in that first year, going from being a newborn to taking first steps and saying first words. There isn’t that much growth in any other year of a child’s life. It’s also amazing how kids grow and learn in the zero-to-five time frame. That’s why I love working with them because every day they change.”

In high school, Tarjick started working part time at the YMCA as an assistant in the toddler room. She also took early education classes at Berkshire Community College, so that by the time she graduated from high school, she had the coursework and experience she needed to become a toddler teacher.

Over time, Tarjick’s interests grew to include human services. She worked for the Healthy Families program, which is run by the Children’s Trust, supporting first-time parents and young mothers. She also started her own family. 

Tarjick eventually went back to Berkshire Community College and took night classes to earn her associate degree in early childhood education. She continued to work during the day, both as a teacher and a director, and she took classes at night to earn a bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in an interdisciplinary studies program that focused on children, families, and society.

“We graduated the day before I turned 40,” she says. “That was my goal.” 

Tarjick has also become a Licensed Social Work Associate. And at home, in addition to being the parent of three biological children, she is a foster and adoptive parent of eight other children.

Merging her professional and personal interests in children has led her to a new path.

“I’ve combined working in early childhood with working in foster care in the adoption world because I enjoy working with families as a whole,” she explains. “I currently work as a protective social worker in a center that provides care for children who are involved with the Department of Children and Families (DCF).” 

The program is based at the Gladys Allen Brigham Community Center. And some of the families Tarjick works with are foster families. Others are preparing to adopt children. Tarjick helps them communicate effectively with DCF and connect to community resources so that parents have everything they need once their connection to DCF ends. 

It’s work that has grown harder. Since the pandemic, Tarjick has seen more family challenges emerge. 

“There’s a huge need for infant-toddler care. And coming out of the pandemic, there’s a lot of increased trauma for kids and families, and there are a lot of significant behavioral mental health needs for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. That’s why educators and families need more support. 

“I have done some training for educators at our center and other centers about trauma. And as much as I think training is wonderful, one training session isn’t enough. There needs to be continued support. That could mean adding more staff or lowering teacher/student ratios.” 

As a member of the Advocacy Network, Tarjick has decided the project she wants to work on is improving communication between the local early childhood field and the Department of Children and Families. She organized a meeting of Berkshire County child care center directors who shared their opinions about what communication efforts are effective and where there are communication gaps.

“We want to be better partners with DCF because we’re caring for DCF-involved children for eight, nine, or 10 hours a day sometimes, so better communication will make a difference for kids.”

One of Tarjick’s goals is to have closer connections between DCF social workers and early educators so that the educators can provide useful feedback about children as they move through all the phases of DCF involvement. 

Another outcome Tarjick would like to see is having an early childhood consultant in every regional office of DCF, someone who would focus on children, birth to age five, who have special needs and considerations.

Looking at future needs and opportunities, Tarjick says, “I worry about our babies and toddlers right now because we just don’t have the capacity to meet their needs.” 

Strategic investments could, she says, help. 

“We want to see our early educators paid well. We need to invest in them so that we have enough quality staff to have enough quality programming. We’ll never build the programming that we need without our staff. They’re the heart and soul of our programming. 

“If we invest in educators it will allow for the growth of the early childhood industry. My hope is that we can eliminate long waitlists for our infants and toddlers and decrease parents’ need to use unsafe/unlicensed care. Our children and families deserve high quality child care that’s available as soon as they need it.”