Inspirational and Empowering Child Care Business Owners To Build Successful Child Care Businesses

Archive for the ‘Child Care Center’ Category

Tackling the Self Study

The Self- Study Process Assures the Best Practices In The Field. ~NAEYC

When I created the editorial theme for the childcare business owner blog, I created the theme with quality care in mind. A sure way to evaluate if you are providing quality practices or not is by evaluating your childcare program with a self-study.

What is a Self Study?

A Self study comes in the form of a manual that is an assessment tool that normally covers the following core areas of  your program:

  • Health/safety
  • Curriculum/program planning
  • Parent communication/family
  • Administration Practices
  • Physical Environment

The time that it takes to complete a self-study is up to you and your staff (if you are a center.) My suggestion is that you take each area of the study, dedicate a set amount of time to focus on that particular area, make the necessary improvements and move on to another area of the self study.

As you complete the self study, you may discover that you may already be implementing some of the Accreditation quality indicators and that is awesome. However, if you find that you are not, make the changes and keep moving forward.

Each area that you tackle, celebrate!!  This can be done with a pizza party for the kids; hang a banner that reads: “We have quality health & safety practices,etc.” To assure that you or your staff does not forget the quality practices, post reminders or issue weekly memos that cover the Accreditation quality practices.

What if you cannot afford to Purchase your self study?

As I was preparing for this blog post, I reviewed the fees to apply for NAFCC accreditation and it was quite expensive. Now I see why so, many providers are not accredited. I was one of the lucky ones, my home daycare accreditation was paid for with a grant back in 2002 and I had no idea that  the cost of the self study was (for non-members only).

I decided to do a little research for you and I found some agencies that provide financial assistance for providers that want to apply for accreditation for their childcare businesses. After an extensive Google search for one-hour, I discovered three states that provided financial assistance. I am quite sure that there are other agencies that provide financial assistance, however, I did not discover many of them online.

According to NAEYC, there are many states that provide Accreditation facilitation financial assistance. Visit the NAEYC link below and watch the video for more details.

If you do not see your state below, I do recommend that you contact your local, childcare association or United way to request financial assistance with your accreditation. My childcare business is in the state of Missouri and I must say that our state really supports home daycare and centers that seek to be accredited. In fact, we have our very own Accreditation agency (MO Accreditation of Program for children and youth).

In summary, after going through three Accreditation in my home and center, I recommend accreditation to assure quality practices. If you desire to be accredited, get started on seeking out financial assistance for your accreditation. If you have the funds to buy your self study, go ahead and order your self-study as soon as possible.

As you get started on your self-study, begin  implementing the changes that are recommended in the self study, you will be so glad that you applied for accreditation!

You are a click away from the self-study process

National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)

National Association for the Education of Young Children  NAEYC

Financial help

For Providers living in New Jersey

http://www.pinj.org/upload/ASAP_2page_flyer_8-09.pdf

For Providers in Illinois

http://www.inccrra.org/financial-assistance

For Providers in Pennsylvania

http://www.pacca.org/quality.aspx

Need my help with Accreditation? Contact me today!

With Quality Care in Mind,

Shiketa Morgan, Owner of Learning Days Child Care Center (A Missouri Accredited Center)

http://www.learningdays.com

Category:

Accreditation, Child Care Center, daycare, Family Child Care, Quality Care

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Observation in Your Preschool Program

Observation is a vital part of assessing the preschoolers in your program. I first discovered the importance of observation when I was enrolled in the childcare field base program here in St.Louis through the local community college.

Observation is simply writing down the behaviors that you see in your environment.

If you happen to  be very experienced at recording observations this blog post may simply be a refresher coarse of what you may already know about child observation.

If you are not experienced at writing observations or not sure why it should be a vital part of your preschool program, this post will walk you through the process and how you can use observations to assess the children in your preschool program. Furthermore at the end of the post, I have attached links to more observation resources.

Here is an example of what an observation of two preschoolers in the Block Area:

It is 9:30am and Johnny and Karen are playing in the block area. Johnny was building in the block area alone. Karen walked over and asked, can I play? Johnny yelled…”NO!” Karen walked  away crying.

After reading the observation above, what did you discover about both children? I am going to guess that you discovered an opportunity to encourage kindness and friendship. Also, an opportunity to encourage Karen to use her words and to teach Johnny to share.

Moreover, the observation above could be used as an inspiration to read books about being kind to our friends and promoting sharing in the play areas.

You may have come to other conclusions, However, I just wanted to give a brief overview of why observation is so important in preschool and how it allows you to determine what the children in your care really needs.

When I hire new teachers, they usually ask me, how often do I expect them to record observations. I tell simply them to record as many observations as they desire, because the more that you observe young children; the more  you will discover about their developmental needs.

Just in case you are a home provider or your teachers may complain about the paper work, I would like to share with you how I make the observation process in my center easy and convenient.

  • Carry sticky notes in your pocket
  • Have observation forms copied and already labeled with each child’s name on a clip board in the classroom.
  • Record the classroom for 30 minutes a day and then go back and write down the observations on paper
  • If you have a digital camera system, use the camera system as an observation and training tool for staff

I hope that you have been inspired to use observation in your preschool program. If you are already using observation tools, keep up the good work!

Here are some child observation resources:

Forms for Observation

Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences Free e-book!

Learning Through Child Observation Free e-book!

Child Profile Observation Form

 

To Your Success in the Business Of Child Care,

Shiketa

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I want to help you to Succeed!! Feel free to email your childcare business questions to me at childcarenews@aol.com.

Category:

Assessment, Child Care Center, Family Child Care, Lesson Planning, preschool, Quality Care

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