Family Child Care Accreditation
From: Barb Sawyer
Email: BSawyer316@comcast.net
Date: March 05, 2006
Comments
Welcome to all of you - I hope that you're all ready for a week of in-depth discussion about family child care accreditation and some outside the box thinking about the benefits to the families you serve when you are accredited. Because participants are at different stages of knowledge about accreditation as a process, I thought it might be helpful to begin the dialogue with some information about that. I thought it might also help people keep track of where we are if I outline a topic area for each day. Of course, you're welcome to ask questions, offer information, or respond about another topic at any time.
Accreditation itself is a process that always has 4 major components: a set of standards (often developed by the industry itself); a self-study phase; a peer review; a decision about the status of the candidate. NAFCC accreditation includes all of these components in its accreditation process. NAFCC Accreditation peer review is referred to as the observation visit.
NAFCC introduced its original accreditation in 1988. During the pilot, 28 providers in 4 states became accredited. These newly accredited providers were recognized at the Save The Children Family Child Care Technical Assistance Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in April of 1988. Following that, NAFCC - known as NAFDC at that time - launched accreditation of family child care providers nationwide. NAFCC's original accreditation model was built using an accreditation document designed for child care centers and adapted for family child care. Although the document and the process were adequate, NAFCC always recognized the need for a tool designed specifically for family child care.
In 1994 NAFCC began the development of a new accreditation system specifically designed for family child care. The standards were developed through a consensus building process and were piloted in 1998. They were launched in 1999. Currently there are over 2,600 accredited providers in 49 states and at least 5 foreign countries. There are nearly 3,000 family child care providers in the self-study process. The Quality Standards for NAFCC Accreditation is currently in the fourth edition. Standards are revised as new information in the field becomes available, as best practices change, or when there is a demonstrated need for change.
Accreditation standards are divided into 5 content areas: relationships, the environment, developmental learning activities, safety and health, and professional and business practices. There are 4 phases to the NAFCC Accreditation process: application, self-study, observation, and decision. The Quality Standards for NAFCC Accreditation are available at www.nafcc.org. They can also be ordered from NAFCC at 1-800-359-3817.
An accreditation application can be downloaded from NAFCC's website, completed and mailed to NAFCC. We will soon have the ability to accept accreditation applications on-line. To be eligible to become NAFCC accredited providers must meet these requirements: be at least 21; have a high-school diploma or GED; provider care to at least 3 children in a home environment for a minimum of 15 hours per week - at least one of the children must live outside the provider's home; be the primary caregiver spending at leawst 80% of the operating hours actively involved with the children; have at least 18 months experience as a family child care provider; meet the highest level of regulation to operate a family child care program; be in compliance with all regulations of the authorized licensing body.
On Monday, let's begin with questions and discussion about the self-study process. If there are questions or discussion about any of the information in this greeting we should be able to address that on Monday, too.
Because self-study is a critical part of the accreditation process, let's plan to spend both Monday and Tuesday addressing self-study and the quality standards. For those of you who are already accredited or who have requested your observation visit, help us think through the benefits that are realized during the self-study phase. It would be particularly helpful to remember to look at the benefits to families and children durinig this phase.
Providers usually have many questions about the observation visit, so let's plan to spend Wednesday and Thursday addressing that phase of accreditation. Again, accredited providers - how can we help parents understand the benefits of having a peer review?
Finally, on Friday we can look at the decision phase, how decisions are made, and what next steps might be. On our final day, we should be ready for any final burning issues, questions, and a final review of what benefits parents (and communities) should expect when the pool of accredited providers exist in a community.
I'll look forward to hearing from each of you during the week.
Barb
