Child Care in Mid-Coast Maine - Quality

Accreditation is a comprehensive approach to documenting and improving the quality of early childhood and school-age programs.

The National Association for the Education of Young (NAEYC) children has offered accreditation to early childhood programs for the past decade. Other accrediting organizations include the National Association of Family Child Care (NAFCC) and the National School Age Care Alliance (NSACA).

The State of Maine recognizes any program as being a “Quality Child Care Program” if they meet the standards of the accrediting bodies named above or if they are a Head Start Program of Excellence. Recently, the Office of Child Care and Head Start located at DHS, sponsored a “Quality Program” certificate to child care programs that met established standards adopted by the State of Maine.

As of September, 2003, nine Mid-Coast Child Care Centers have achieved the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accreditation. Four Mid-Coast Family Child Care homes have achieved the National Association of Family Child Care accreditation. Four Mid-Coast Head Start centers have achieved a Program of Quality certificate. Fifteen Mid-Coast Family Child Care homes have achieved the state of Maine Quality Certificate.

There is a growing awareness that high quality child care can prevent social problems such as juvenile violence and delinquency, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and school failure, all of which affect business and society as a whole.