A manual for trainers of family child care providers seeking accreditation

Project (M.A., Child Development (Applied Settings))--California State University, Sacramento, 2012.Family child care is the most common type of non-custodial care for children under the age of five years (Bordin, Machida & Varnell, 2000). However, because the licensing requirements for provider education and training are minimal, the quality of care is questionable. One way to improve quality care is to promote the accreditation of providers. The National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) has developed a quality process that requires providers to negotiate the steps involved in accreditation on their own. The purpose of this project was to develop a comprehensive training manual for trainers leading family child care providers through the accreditation process. \ud This project addressed the lack of materials available for trainers to assist FCC providers through the accreditation process. The training manual created in the project incorporated NAFCC materials related to the accreditation process as well as supplemental training materials created by the researcher. The manual offers guidelines trainers can follow to conduct workshops covering the NAFCC accreditation process and the quality standards necessary for accreditation. The training methods and materials were based on current research related to adult learning styles and effective pedagogy for adult learners. The following chapters also include a thorough discussion of family child care issues such as quality in family child care programs and the importance of provider training.\ud The training manual developed for this project will be the first NAFCC manual for offering training to providers interested in obtaining accreditation, and as such has the potential of being used as a tool to improve the quality of family child care programs nationwide. Developing a quality based accreditation process has been an important step in improving the level of care offered in FCC programs. The next step is to create a training support system that will assist providers in being successful at achieving accreditation.Child Development (Applied Settings