Alba Di Bello

Alba Di Bello is the founder of A Child’s Place School located in Lincroft, NJ and was its director for thirty-four years. She had the good fortune to travel widely and has visited preschools in Europe, Asia, Mexico and Australia as well as the United States. In 1990 she made her first trip to Reggio Emilia and she was so inspired by these practices that she integrated this approach to her existing philosophical base and it formed a major part of her staff professional development program. This first trip was the impetus to her creating a primary wing and primary classroom to house five, six and seven year olds at A Child’s Place school, a program which continues today.

She is also the founding chair of NJEEPRE and was chair for seven years before recently stepping down but she still remains actively committed to the organization and hopes to help support its continued growth. As a founding member of NAREA and the New Jersey Membership coordinator for the organization she has held many meetings on the Fundamentals of the Reggio Emilia Approach in the strong belief that these principles form the core basis for integrating this approach to one’s own practice. Helping people to study these principles and deepen their understanding was one of her goals for NJEEPRE and is seen in the Roundtable Series, one of the first initiatives to be put in place.

Alba continues to offer presentations regarding her ideas and concepts created while at A Child’s Place School and offers consultation and workshops to schools wishing to develop adaptations of the Reggio Emilia Approach to their programs. She continues to write as well regarding her two major passions in this field; working with young children and materials and integrating death education into the early childhood curriculum. Both topics have long been a special focus and she compiled a Guide to Death Education for Directors and Teachers. She has authored articles in Innovations and  Childcare Exchange and co authored a paper on materials for the Kean University Creative Mind Conference which refers to the inspirations of Reggio Emilia adapted to a NJ school context and also discusses the current approach to materials in most school programs.

Alba currently lives in Shrewsbury, NJ with her husband Patrick. They have two daughters, both in the education field and four beautiful grandchildren aged 24 to 11 years old. She may be reached at albadibello@prodigy.net.