Julie obtained her honors diploma in Early Childhood Education (ECE) from Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Science in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1997. Throughout her 23 years in the ECE field, Julie has worked in various settings from private childcare to large centers catering to military families in Halifax, owned and directed her own childcare facility, managed a club for school-age children, and has now found a new home with Willowbrae Academy. Throughout Julie’s career, she has focused her passions and childcare philosophy on play as the biggest learning/teaching tool, as all child development areas stem from play. Through play, we build relationships, the relationships foster trust, when we trust, we take risks and experiment, and through those risks and experiments, we learn. Julie is very excited to join the team at Willowbrae Academy and feels that she will complement their philosophy and continue to grow and learn alongside the children and team. In her free time, Julie can be found with her husband at a baseball field or basketball court watching their children or on a walking trail with her chocolate lab.