Deer Lake Child Care
(Formerly Deer Lake Preschool)
Full-Day Program Educators
Samantha
Manager
Samantha started to work with families and children in Burnaby since 2005, as she operated her own registered-licensed-not-required family day care. She has discovered her passion in the field and was inspired by her local community vocational program that she took the step further to study and learn and become an early childhood educator. She is grateful to work along side the amazing team at Deer Lake Preschool and feel fortunate to be part of the team. Her hope is the families and children who joining at the Deer Lake community would establish a sense of belonging, which would nurture the growth for each of the children and support them to thrive confidently around their worlds.
Heather
Educator
Neeru
Educator
Judy
Founder of Deer Lake Child Care
(Formerly Deer Lake Preschool)
Judy started working as an Early Childhood Educator in 1983. Since that time she has had many wonderful opportunities in this field and has worked with children from 0 - 19yrs.
Along with many years of working on the floor with the children, she has had the opportunity to work in the role of consultant to child care settings and families, managing child care facilities and teaching Early Childhood Education at the college level. It has always been her dream to be able to support children and families in her own preschool and she was thrilled when this came to be in September 2011.
As the Manager of Deer Lake Daycare, she feels so honored to have a staff team that is committed to providing a quality preschool program. We are proud to offer an inclusive, play based setting where we work hard to instill a love and an excitement of learning. In order to reach that goal we encourage and support children to learn to investigate, create and take appropriate risks in and outside of our classroom.
Elizabeth
Lead educator
Elizabeth Svetic graduated from the Burnaby School District Community and Continuing Education, Early Childcare Education program in June of 2016. Her experience with children commenced while growing up, as the oldest of three children she helped take care of her younger siblings. Currently married with three children of her own, she provided at home before/after school care for several years, while raising her children. She also enjoyed a year as a Behaviour Interventionist and has worked in the childcare field for 6 plus years. She has been part of the Deer Lake Childcare team since 2015 and enjoys learning something new every day.
In her spare time, she enjoys watching and cheering for her children in their sporting events and all their adventures. She also enjoys scrapbooking, reading and spending any time with my family.
She believes in creating an environment that invites all children to explore. She also promotes building relationships with children, as this is the foundation for all types of learning. Being able to learn along with the children makes each day a rewarding experience.
Jana
Lead Educator
Jana first came to know Deer Lake Childcare when she did her practicum in the summer of 2017. After building a relationship with the children, educators, and the environment, she came to realize she was meant to stay here. Jana joined the team after her practicum and has been guiding and caring for the children since. Jana loves being outside with the children, exploring the lake and forest areas that surround the childcare centre. Previously, Jana’s interest in social work inspired her to focus her work on educating children. After moving to Canada, she continued in this direction and felt inspired with how inclusive the early childhood education field is. She spent many years working with children of various ages, mostly in home settings, before starting her ECE schooling. Jana has been an Early Childhood Educator (including IT and SN qualifications) for 4 years now. Jana’s goal is to create and maintain strong and caring relationships with all children in the program, and to support both programs to best of her abilities. Jana strongly believes each child is unique and it’s an educator’s responsibility to help them flourish.
Karen
Educator
Karen started in the field of education over 10 years ago when she went to Japan to teach English to elementary school age and kindergarten children. Even though this was a big change from the tourism field in which she started, she quickly realized that working with young children was invigorating and such a rewarding field to be in. After teaching in Japan and travelling around, Karen returned to Vancouver in 2018 and began her studies in Early Childhood Education. Having grown up and playing outdoors as a child, Karen values the time that is spent outdoors because children learn so much from playing.