The Picayune Family Resource and Education Center is now a Pearson VUE® Authorized Test Center. With the designation, people in the community will now have easier access to certification and qualifications that will help develop their skills and knowledge.

The center is funded by Families First of Mississippi. There, the community can find free resources such as online course work to obtain a high school diploma for adults, access to computer labs, professional development classes and early childhood development courses, Sonya Myers said. She is the early childhood research and data manager.

Myers said the center’s recently earned designation allows it to provide professional exams that can help someone obtain child development associate credentials required to work in a licensed childcare facility.

The center’s child development associate credential training entails seven weeks of educational and professional training before providing the exam to obtain certification.

There are also several information technology exams such as CompTIA, Cisco, Oracle, HP, VMware and others.

Myers said before the center received the designation in March of this year, anyone interested in this training was expected to travel to the nearest test center, which was located at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

Because that travel time was inconvenient staff felt it was important to provide these services closer to home, Myers said.

“We want to expand to offer more tests… so that people have more options,” she said.

There are 4 designated testing stations at the resource center available to test takers. Online registration can be completed by visiting pearsonvue.com. Those interested in taking tests at the Picayune resource center as their testing site. All test takers must bring 2 forms of ID and are required to sign-in with certified PearsonVue test administrators, at the center.

Testing is available on Tuesdays and Fridays from 8 A.M. – 4 P.M., at the center located on 900 East 3rd Street next to the Picayune School District Center for Alternative Education campus.

A full list of exams conducted at the center can be found at https://home.pearsonvue.com/Documents/Test-center/test_center_available_exams.aspx.

The center is willing to consider offering other exams offered by Personvue. To request a particular exam, contact Personvue, Myers said.