Why this agency was created
Founder: Slava Sles · Alberta Level 3 Early Childhood Educator · Background in early childhood education and music education · Experience operating a Calgary family day home · Music-based and play-based learning · Multilingual communication
A place where children are safe, cared for, and supported to grow with confidence.
This is not just a childcare agency. It is a place where parents can feel at peace and educators can build something real, stable, and respected. Trust is earned through clear standards, honest communication, and people who are prepared, supported, and accountable.
When Slava first started looking into day homes and agencies, what she found was not clarity but confusion. Information was everywhere, but there was no simple path to follow, no clear starting point, no step-by-step guidance, and no real sense of what mattered first. Finding an agency was just as difficult. She reached out again and again, but there were no available spots and no real support for how to move forward. For more than two years, she searched while continuing to run her own private day home and trying to figure everything out on her own.
That experience became the turning point. Slava saw how easily educators and families could be left feeling rushed, overwhelmed, unsupported, or rejected. In her experience, people were often pushed through paperwork without real explanation, or left feeling that one mistake could cost them everything. She also experienced contracts ending in ways that felt driven more by fear and competition than by support. That showed her how badly people needed something different: an agency built on clarity, accountability, calm step-by-step guidance, and real integrity. SMADA was created to offer what was missing, a more human path into childcare, backed by clear systems, written standards, and practical checklists that guide instead of overwhelm.
From the very first conversation, Slava wants educators to feel safe, guided, organized, and at peace. She wants them to know they are not alone, that they have someone beside them who understands the process, shares real knowledge, and helps them move forward with confidence. For educators, this is not just about paperwork or placement. It is about building a real day home business with support behind it, with clearer guidance, practical help, stronger positioning, and room to keep growing in both quality and income.
For parents, the promise is simple and non-negotiable: their child should be safe, cared for, and supported to grow with confidence. Slava wants children to experience a childhood that feels joyful, peaceful, and truly theirs, a place where they can have fun, feel secure, and develop their creativity, confidence, language, motor skills, and sense of self. Safety and dignity are non-negotiable. There is no place in this environment for abuse, neglect, violence, smoking, drugs, or any behavior that puts children at risk. Parents should feel that the people caring for their child are calm, capable, attentive, and prepared to respond responsibly on ordinary days and in emergencies.
Supporting families from many cultural and language backgrounds is also deeply personal to her. SMADA welcomes families from all backgrounds and is especially equipped to support English, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Czech-speaking families. Slava understands how heavy a language barrier can feel when families are trying to rebuild their lives. No parent or educator should feel unwelcome, alone, or afraid to ask questions. Every family should feel respected, understood, and treated with kindness from the beginning.
Slava’s connection to this work is deeply personal. She has always loved being around children. Even as a child herself, she naturally cared for younger kids, created activities, and found joy in their growth. She believes early environments shape who children become, and that a peaceful, supportive childhood helps build a stronger future.
Music is another foundation of her life. She began studying music at the age of five and continued through years of formal training in music school, college, and university, developing as a performer, conductor, singer, pianist, and bandura player. As an opera singer and trained musician, she has performed internationally and seen firsthand how music builds discipline, concentration, creativity, rhythm, and emotional expression. For her, music is not decoration. It is part of how children learn to focus, create, move, express feelings, and experience joy. In everyday care, music shows up naturally, in transitions, songs, rhythm, movement, language, and the discovery of new sounds and cultures.
Her path into SMADA is also grounded in experience. She began by running her own day home, then continued her education in early childhood development, earning Level 2 and Level 3 certification. That gave her a deeper understanding of children’s behavior, development, and needs, and of how to support both children and educators with more wisdom and precision.
At the center of everything Slava builds is how she shows up for people. She wants educators and parents to feel that she is truly on their side, someone who listens, understands, and helps solve real problems instead of adding more confusion. People often describe her as kind, hardworking, steady, and someone with a big heart. She believes support should feel human, not transactional, and that people should leave feeling better, clearer, and more confident than when they started.
More than money, she cares about building a real community, one where parents feel at peace, educators feel respected, and both naturally share their experience because they genuinely felt supported. She cares about creating environments where people can feel safe enough to grow, creative enough to contribute, and supported enough to keep going.
If she had to describe what SMADA is meant to be in one sentence, it would be this: a family you can trust, one that cares, guides, and stays with you through the process.
