Let’s start by defining the family child care network.
The Family Child Care Network is a group of certified childcare educators in Monterey and lower Santa Cruz County who run top-notch programs out of their homes.
On several matters, they collaborate with us directly, and we give them ongoing training and assistance. FCCN combines the high standards of a top-notch child care facility with the warmth and intimacy of a home setting.
Please continue reading as I provide more in-depth information about the family child care network.
Table of Contents
Goals Of Family Child Care Network
Family child care networks are structured around a set of objectives backed by particular activities that involve individual family child care programs. A family child care network’s objectives include:
- the sector of childcare for families becoming stable.
- enhancing operational procedures to stabilize family child care programs’ financial outlook.
- raising the standard of care in family child care programs.
- ensuring the provision of support services for kids, such as social and emotional growth.
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Family Child Care Network Activities
Family child care networks work to raise standards by offering centralized quality improvement resources through direct technical assistance and professional development training. The quality of participating family child care programs can be improved by participating in professional development specifically provided by networks. Small, frequently isolated family child care programs can connect with one another and increase their program presence in a community thanks to networks. For instance, peer networking, which is encouraged by the National Association of Family Child Care through local affiliates, provides opportunities for shared training, develops program leadership to engage in public policy debates, and links policy to practice.
Networks of family child care providers are flexible enough to respond quickly to changes in program requirements and community needs. To help COVID-19-affected children and parents, networks can quickly deliver training on social-emotional growth and trauma-informed practices.
Networks also provide a shared services structure that offers business and family child care programs that participate economies of scale. Shared services, which may include tax preparation, enrollment assistance, fee collection, marketing, participation in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), as well as shared purchasing of food, instructional supplies, and teacher resources, consolidate back-end business operations for family child care programs to reduce overall program costs.
Family child care programs are frequently the only choice for parents who have non-traditional schedules, so local economies dependent on non-traditional hour workers, like the health care or service industries, can engage networks to identify family child care programs close to places of employment or homes of non-traditional hours. Networks can encourage non-traditional hour child care and deploy resources to support hours past 9 a.m. by offering centralized resources.-to-5 p.m., including overnight staff, specialized training, and materials.
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Components Of An Effective Family Child Care Network
The requirements of participating family child care programs, the kids and parents they serve, and the communities in which they are located can all be accommodated by networks. High-quality family child care networks must, however, support improvements in both program quality and operational procedures if resources are to be used to their full potential. The ability of a network to establish a peer learning environment among various family child care programs, which might otherwise be dispersed and resource-limited, is linked to quality improvement. A network’s role depends heavily on the business operations of a family child care program being stable in order to maximize investments and community impact. To facilitate these tasks and maintain the network’s operations, networks must also have staff. As a result, highly efficient family child care networks include the following:
- Staff. A staff member at the director level who is knowledgeable, skilled, and able to respond to the requirements of family child care programs while enhancing program quality and financial viability.
- support for business practices. Program management benefits from economies of scale and efficiency brought about by business practice support, including shared services. Shared services boost revenue collection, reduce overall expenses, and boost CACFP usage for participating programs. Access to technology is a crucial element of business practice support, for example, a web-based interface that centralizes back-office operations for family child care programs and enhances their capacity to make large purchases, keep accurate financial records, and advertise their services.
- Quality-building support. In order to improve quality, including trauma-informed practices and social-emotional development—which will be especially important for kids affected by COVID-19—contracted early childhood specialists offer technical assistance and professional development to participating family child care programs.
- Peer networking. Program quality and network participation have been shown to increase when peer networking opportunities are supported by travel reimbursements or technology access that enables direct program-to-program communication.
- Start-up grants. To uphold health and safety standards, improve parent accessibility, and support developmentally appropriate settings, networks can provide start-up grants to family child care programs.
Potential funding should provide $225,000 for each network in order to support highly effective networks. With funding for a director position, early childhood quality specialists, business practice support, peer networking opportunities, and $75,000 set aside for start-up grants for new family child care programs in the network, this would enable a family child care network to serve up to 25 family child care programs.
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Final Thoughts
The family child care network was highlighted in the article.
Family Child Care Network provides opportunities for leadership and advocacy, professional development, educational mentoring, and community with other family child care providers. A high-touch program with a focus on early childhood consultation and teacher mentoring, The Network. Early childhood specialists make visits to family child care facilities to facilitate model lessons, exhibit fresh approaches, and engage in post-facility reflection with staff members.
To improve children’s learning, consultants bring books and materials, academic articles, and curriculum ideas.
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Thank you so much for reading. Thank you!