Family Child Care Professionals

I'm very excited to see RAEYC's website evolving to serve as beacon for illuminating the high-quality learning experiences offered to young children by early childhood educators who operate out of their homes. I am also so happy to now have a vehicle for sharing these experiences across a variety of settings, particularly in the Rochester area.

The Children's Institute coducts research that supports the fact that Rochester has the highest quality of preschool education in the nation.  Encouragingly, the scale used to measure this, is one that allows everyone to reach such a level.  Some programs are still emerging.

Home-based programs are among the high scores that contribute to Rochester's ECE quality. I know this because my program has been evaluated repeatedly over the past 6 yrs, most recently contributing an overall score of 6.8 (out of 7.0) to the cumulative data, with perfect scores of 7.0 in the areas of Program Structure, Language & Reasoning, Social Development, and finally, Parent/Teacher Relationship.

I know I'm not alone in this level of quality, and I believe the home-based program have some inherent characteristics that contribute to this level of quality.

FCC & GFCC programs by design have small group sizes  (5-8 children in FCC), low staff turnover (I've had ZERO staff turnover in the past 13yrs), continuity of relationships over the years (while my program is limited to children ages 2 - 5yrs, only families that are interested in growing a 3-year relationship with the same teacher are enrolled in my program, and many other home-based programs serve the same child, and multiple siblings, from 6wks thru 12 yrs of age!), and teachers with ever-growing competencies in  educating young children and their parents (home-based educators participate alongside others in the field in acquiring specialized certifications and college degrees).  

We know these to be only a few of the critical components of high-quality programs.  This could serve as a starting point, as I invite each of us offering our programs from our homes, to share some stories of how these elements play out in the daily lives of young children and their parents.  Hearing from anyone willing to share, will highlight the diversity of what's out there--as each program is unique to the person delivering it.  Each of us has a unique contribution we're making to the field and here's a place to offer it up as inspiration and food for thought to others working toward the same end.

With this in mind, I'll be observing the daily life of my program over the next month's time and will be reporting back to you with some real life examples of how the above program characteristics are enriching lives.

Will you join me in sharing YOUR observations?

Karen

Family Liason, RAEYC