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Family Child Care Home Providers

What's new? Get the latest early childhood education (ECE) information and resources directly to your inbox.

Our Guiding Principles

I am planning to become, or I am a current Family Child Care (FCC) provider, looking for:

  • How to become and maintain Pennsylvania certification
  • Pennsylvania and national updates related to FCC
  • Resources, tips, and strategies to enhance quality in your program, as well as empower you as an early childhood education (ECE) professional
  • Family Child Care Workgroup information, like meeting notes, recording, and shared resources. Contact information: fccworkgroup@pakeys.org
  • Professional Development opportunities and events

 

I am a supporting organization for Family Child Care (FCC) providers, looking for:

  • Pennsylvania and National updates related to FCC
  • Resources, tips, and strategies to enhance quality in FCC programs
  • Information to empower FCC providers to be the best they can be
  • Family Child Care Workgroup information, like meeting notes, recording, and shared resources. Contact information:  fccworkgroup@pakeys.org
  • Professional Development opportunities and events
  • Research and best practices about FCC

 

 

What’s New

 

Information for Potential or New Family Child Care Home Providers

 

Programming

  • Pennsylvania Learning Standards for Early Childhood: Research-based according to age and development, and form the foundation for curriculum, assessment, instruction and intervention within early care and education programs.
  • Approved Curriculums: Provides the framework for what happens within a planned environment to allow for learning and interactions with materials, peers and adults. The curriculum framework also helps to guide the evaluation criteria that are appropriate for the program.
  • Home Grown Curriculum RequirementImportant information for programs using a homegrown curriculum: Programs using a homegrown curriculum need to submit an alignment to the 2014 Learning Standards for Early Childhood based on the ages served (Infant/Toddler, Pre-Kindergarten or both). Infant/Toddler (MS Word) and Pre-Kindergarten (MS Word) templates are available for this purpose. Each template contains the Standard Areas, Standards and Concepts and Competencies written out by domain on the left side of the template. Programs need to supply evidence of alignment in the right hand column of the document. A curriculum is considered meeting the alignment threshold when 75% of the domain (s) is aligned to the standards. Submissions can be for comprehensive coverage of all key learning areas or focus on a single domain. All alignment submissions and questions should be directed to Maryanne Olley at (717) 214-8434 or molley@pa.gov.
  • Program Quality Assessment
  • Program Observation Instrument (POI)

 

Pennsylvania’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL)

  • Pennsylvania’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) is a dual deputate office of the Pennsylvania Departments of Education and Human Services.
  • Early Learning Resource Centers (ELRC): Discover what is an ELRC and then find one that serves your region.
    • Keystone STARS: Keystone STARS is Pennsylvania’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). A QRIS is a continuous quality improvement systemic approach to assess, improve, and communicate the level of quality in early and school-age care and education programs. Keystone STARS is a program of the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL).
    • Internal Assessment

 

Professional Development

  • Professional Development Registry: Discover what is the Professional Development (PD) Registry and how it can help you.
  • Professional Development Organizations (PDO): PDOs offer access to a unified professional development (PD) system for early childhood educators.
  • Financial Assistance: (OCDEL offers several ways for early childhood and school-age professionals to receive professional development efforts.
  • Career Pathway: Pennsylvania’s ECE Career Pathway seeks to simplify and guide our profession towards meeting the minimal qualifications and competencies needed for each role an ECE Professionals may have.

 

Resources and Research

 

Family Child Care Workgroup

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