January 24, 2001
Daycares earn top accreditation
Providers recognized by national child care program
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Please, don't call them baby-sitters.
With just under a combined 60 years of experience offering family daycare in their respective homes, Beth Fryer, Sue Rice and Cheryl Beery see themselves as professionals running a viable business. They love children, that is a given, and have made caring for them their life's work and livelihood.
"I love kids and I wanted to be home with my own children when they were growing up," said Beery, owner of Creative Child Care in East Bay Township. "This is a good mix and you can make a good living running a child care, you won't get wealthy, but it is a good living."
Beery has provided in-home child care for 23 years and raised her own children doing it. Now her daughter is one of her paid assistants, bringing her own infant to work with her.
Like Beery, Fryer and Rice take their profession seriously and are always looking for ways to improve their programs. They take classes, seminars and work with professional associations, in addition to constantly tweaking their environment to meet the needs of their kids.
Recognizing their professionalism and dedication to kids, all three recently received accreditation from the National Association for Family Child Care, a professional association for in-home daycare providers. They are the only providers in northwest Michigan who have achieved this recognition.
Completing the application process for accreditation was arduous, with pages of documentation and references and a home visit. However, each felt that the process was a way to document what they do and how they interact with their kids and families every day.
Rice cited a number of motivations for applying for accreditation, including an enhanced sense of professionalism, self-esteem and a business boost.
"This was a higher standard that what licensing requires," said Rice, who started Pedal Pushers Daycare 17 years ago. "You go through checklists of hundreds of items and parents complete sealed surveys."
Fryer, owner of Teddybear Daycare in Long Lake Township added that "It really takes a lot of time, money and dedication to bring your program to NAFCC level."
The NAFCC standard looked at a broad range of issues, including the environment, activities offered, discipline, social and self development, physical development, self esteem and awareness, literacy and math.
"Accreditation really looks at the quality and looks at a lot of different areas of their curriculum and the physical environment," said Pam Ward, executive director of the 4Cs program. "Actually, the home is becoming accredited, not just the provider. This is something the providers do on their own."
The National Association for Family Child Care was founded in 1982 and is a national organization comprised of more than 400 child care groups nationwide. Locally, the 4Cs is a member organization and promotes the NAFCC's goals of providing high-quality childcare.
The accreditation program began in 1994 to establish standards for family childcare provided in a home setting. With an ever-growing need for quality daycare and government interest and scrutiny in the issue, the association wanted to set a mark for providers.
The 4Cs offered a training program in the fall of 1999, a portion of which helped providers prepare for accreditation. Another class starts this week, with Fryer teaching the accreditation portion, to encourage more daycare professionals to strive for accreditation.
"We offer training to help them understand what the process is," Ward said. "It also helps providers get started and gets them the information to make sure they are compatible with the standards."