West Midland Family Center

West Midland Staff Participates in Professional Development Day The West Midland Family Center hosted it's tri-annual Professional Development Day (PDD). Three times a year,February, May and October, WMFC hosts the Professional Development Day in order to give employees opportunities for professional and personal growth. Each year WMFC has a theme for it's Professional Development Days. This years theme is "Building Bridges in 2010". The PDD agenda consists of "getting to know you" activities, team building activities, program updates, policy and procedure updates, an "Open Forum" with the WMFC Executive Director and a presentation about a special topic given by a guest speaker. Terri Malek-Madani, the Dow COP Director, was the special guest speaker. She gave a lively interactive presentation titled "Communication and Building Bridges". Terri was only able to touch on the wide topic of communication but her presentation was so well received that there is talk of having her back for "part 2" in May of this year. A highlight of every PDD is the awarding of the "Diane Dauer Heart of the Center" Award. The "Heart of The Center" is awarded to the employee who best exhibits the characteristics of the late Diane Dauer. The award is presented by Angela Oros, Diane's daughter, who currently works at WMFC. The recipient at this meeting was Mike Kirby who works in the WMFC Maintenance Department. "Mike is everyone's all and all", stated Jeff Myers, WMFC Maitenance Director,"most people have no idea all that Mike does not only for the Center, but for the people in our community." "The PDD is an event that our staff looks forward to," stated Renee Allen, WMFC Recreation Director,"it gives the staff an opportunity to get together as a whole and grow as a unit. In our world it is rare for us to see one another, much less be in the same room together for any extended amount of time. PDD's offer us the opportunity to participate in team building activities as a whole and an opportunity to be communicated to as a whole. They have proved to be a very valuable use of our time as a staff."