Nationally Accredited infant toddler care, Los Angeles California

Lois Kids' Family
Child Care
is fully accredited by National AFCC
since October 2004.
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The National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) is a national membership organization working with more than 400 state and local family child care provider associations across the United States. These groups represent more than one million family child care providers caring for more than four million children in the United States. Members of the NAFCC reside in every state, as well as in Canada and Japan. NAFCC was formed in 1982 with the help of the Children's Foundation, who recognized the need for a permanent, national voice for family child care. The first national NAFCC conference was held in Washington, DC in 1983.

The mission of NAFCC is to support the profession of family child care and to encourage high-quality care for children. NAFCC has promoted high-quality family child care through accreditation, leadership training, technical assistance, public education, and policy initiatives. NAFCC holds an annual national conference and publishes a quarterly newsletter.

NAFCC developed its first accreditation system in 1988. Ten years later, there were NAFCC-accredited family child care providers in 44 states and the District of Columbia. A 1995 study of accredited providers conducted by the Families and Work Institute confirmed that accreditation increases providers' professionalism and self-esteem, improves quality of care, and develops leadership skills. In communities that support family child care, accredited providers find opportunities for further professional development such as becoming a mentor to other providers, an Observer for NAFCC, or a trainer.

In 1994, NAFCC began a major initiative to develop a new accreditation system for family child care. Instead of modifying existing approaches to assessing quality, NAFCC asked the Family Child Care Project at Wheelock College to create a new accreditation "from scratch." The goal was to recognize the special nature of high quality in this special form of child care. The Quality Standards for the new NAFCC Accreditation system were developed through a two-year, consensus-building process that included hundreds of providers, parents, resource and referral staff members, and other early childhood experts.

In 1998, the new system was piloted in five communities: Boston, Massachusetts; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Chicago, Illinois; Santa Cruz, California; and Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. The new NAFCC accreditation began national operation in 1999.

The new NAFCC Accreditation standards cover the following content areas: Relationships, Environment, Activities, Developmental Learning Goals, Safety and Health, and Professional and Business Practices.