Get to know our Board members by reading about them below!
Sara Bowkowy
Chair
Edmonton Region Child Care Association
Sara has always known she loves working with children and families. What she learned through the process of working with children was that her true passion lies in ensuring children have quality early learning experiences and that the people caring for those children are also cared for. This was the beginning of her leadership journey. Sara works as the Senior Director – Childcare and Pedagogy for Edmonton Region Child Care Association. What she loves about this role is her ability to implement meaningful change that helps create strong places of vitality which allow for participation from all: children, families, and educators. Sara also works as a non-credit instructor for MacEwan University’s Exploring Early Childhood Curriculum Course. She is a past board member for SACDA (School Age Care Directors Association).
Sara has been participating in CAFRA since 2011 when she attended her first meeting. She remembers the feelings of awe and empowerment she received from the leaders and felt motivated to do more and be better for her childcare community. She is excited to be a part of the leadership team and help to continue the important work of developing ELCC Leaders.
Angie Clark
Vice Chair
McKernan Child Development Centre
Monica Gregoire
Secretary/Treasurer
Fulton Child Care Centre
Monica has been an Early Childhood Educator since she graduated. She works at Fulton Child Care Centre as Executive Director. They are a large centre in southeast Edmonton. She has been involved with CAFRA since its inception and as a senior Educator felt it was time to get involved at the Board level. CAFRA offers support and guidance to Directors and this is a crucial role in our changing world. Over the years the director’s role has become more complicated and CAFRA helps to address issues by offering networking opportunities and workshops on a variety of topics. She is new to the role of treasurer and looks forward to the upcoming year. On a personal level, Monica likes to read, paint and sketch. She hopes to meet you at our CAFRA meetings.
Shea Wicks
Past Chair
Wild Heart Children’s Centre
Shea has had the privilege of working with children and families in a variety of roles for over 20 years. Throughout her career, she has sought out the opportunity for training and development, with a focus on leadership. In her current role as the Executive Director of Wild Heart Children’s Centre (formerly Southside Mother’s Day Out), she culminates her past experiences and training together into a parallel practice model to lead a team of practitioners in values-based programming.
Shea has been a participant on the CAFRA Leadership team since 2017 and has facilitated our membership in several direction-setting conversations, including the re-working of our Mission and Objective statements. She believes that well supported, visionary leadership is the key to the professionalization of the ELCC field and sees participation as a CAFRA board member as a pathway for fulfilling that future. She is particularly interested in developing playful, resilient leaders and will offer CAFRA an ear skilled at listening for what is possible and the ability to collaboratively create and implement structures that will have what is possible become realized.
Fran Aarnoutse
Board Director
Southview Child Care
Louise Booker
Board Director
University and Community Early Learning Centre
Louise has been in the field for 30 years; 29 of those years at her current Centre. She has been the Executive Director there since 2001 which ties her to CAFRA at the same time. She has been a mentor for ARCQE and a validator for AELCS. She was part of the committee that did strategic planning for AELCS before it was established. She sits on the MacEwan childcare conference committee, and recently went to New Zealand for a study tour.
Louise served as Chair at CAFRA for a number of years. However, she feels it has only been in the last couple that our strategic plan has taken CAFRA in a new and exciting direction. She has lead the group in S.W.A.T. analysis and strategic planning sessions and is very interested in continuing on the Board to see where we are heading. She thinks CAFRA is in an important transition period and looks forward to providing continuity, experience, history, creative thinking, and so much more in our next year.
Katie Hicks
Board Director
YMCA of Northern Alberta
Adine Shuchuk
Board Director
Jasper Place Child and Family Resource Society
Adine has spent her 35-year career advocating for children, their families and the importance of high quality Early Learning and Care.
Over the years, Adine has fostered many community partnerships and participated in a number of advocacy groups in support of children, families, and community. She was awarded the Minister’s Award of Excellence in Child Development in 2012 and most recently the MacEwan University Distinguished Alumni Award for 2023.
Adine returns to participate on the CAFRA Board with an interest and passion for supporting leadership development in ELCC and in fostering generative networking opportunities for these leaders.
Katelyn Wombold
Board Director
Terra Centre