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.