Under the program accreditation process operated by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), state chapters assign mentors who advise early childhood education providers and guide them through the process. Our Accreditation Mentoring system was developed to organize necessary data collection and reporting by mentors.

How it works
Every aspect of the mentoring process – from a child care center’s initial application, to assignment of a mentor, scheduling of site visits, detailed readiness surveys, and reimbursement of travel expenses – is automated and refined by the Accreditation Monitoring system. Using a Palm-OS personal digital assistant, an Internet-ready personal computer, and a related mentoring web site, the process of guiding program evaluation and growth is tailored to meeting all NAEYC requirements.

Mentors are assigned facilities to visit and can use the system to advise a child care center of visits. Once at the facility, Accreditation Mentoring provides detailed checklists and explanations that cover all NAEYC requirements in such areas as director readiness, staff readiness, how the staff interacts with children, the curriculum, staff-parent interactions, staff qualifications and professional development, administration, staffing levels, the physical environment, health and safety compliance, nutrition and food, and the facility’s internal self-evaluation process.

Mentors may make comments in each area and demonstrate points with photographs, if appropriate. At the end of the visit, information is synchronized with the on-line database, and reports on needed improvements are generated immediately.

Benefits

• The process is highly organized, very specific, and exactly what candidates for accreditation need to improve operations.
• Results are provided immediately and consistently across all program evaluation areas.
• Areas where improvement is required are identified quickly.
• Comparisons of facility progress from visit to visit are immediately accessible.
• Improvements are continual and progressive; no area of the accreditation process is ignored or minimized.

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