provider services...accreditation
Child Care Center Accreditation The purpose of National Association
for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Accreditation (www.naeyc.org) is to improve
the quality of care and education provided for young children in group programs
in the United States. Accreditation provides a process through which early
childhood professionals and families can evaluate programs, compare them with
professional standards, and identify areas needing improvement. Accreditation
includes a self-study process which compares your program to identified criteria,
allows for improving needed areas, and a visit from a national validator to
complete an observation of your program.
Family and Group Provider Accreditation The National Association
for Family Child Care (NAFCC) (www.nafcc.org) is a national membership organization working
with more than 400 state and local family child care provider associations
across the United States. NAFCC Accreditation can help providers, families
and communities define standards of quality for the field of family child
care; help parents and policy makers recognize high-quality family child care;
promote providers’ self-assessment and professional development; motivate
providers to put training into practice; serve as a cornerstone in state professional
development systems. The NAFCC Accreditation process consists of a self-study
assessment, a time to make improvements, and an observation visit by a trained
national observer.
School-Age Care Accreditation Advancing and Recognizing Quality (ARQ)
is the National School-Age Care Alliance's (NSACA) (www.naaweb.org) program improvement
and accreditation system, developed by the National Institute for Out of School
Time (NIOST). The ARQ is a three-step process by which an out of school time
program can improve quality and apply for accreditation. The three-step process
of continuous improvement includes using the Standards to help staff discuss
quality and identify improvements, engaging in a self-study to gather information
from parents, children, staff and the host site, and a visit from an observation
from a trained national validator.