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SAN ANTONIO — Air Force services leaders implemented a five-year plan to gradually phase Air Force child development centers through the new re-accreditation system and assist them in meeting the strict accreditation requirements. Sixty-four CDCs have already met the new standards.
The five-year plan was in response to a 2006 announcement from the National Association for the Education of Young Children that made sweeping changes to the standards, including 412 criteria with which to evaluate programs including curriculum, assessment, health, relationship and leadership and management.
“The National Association for the Education of Young Children has sponsored a national accreditation system since 1985, designed to establish professional standards for early childhood education programs and to help families identify high-quality programs,” said Candace Bird, the child and youth programs deputy chief for Headquarters Manpower, Personnel and Services. The plan includes training, consultant visits, process standardization and Air Force-wide solution development to provide consistency in the programs.
There are four steps a child development program must complete in the new accreditation process: application, self-study, candidacy and the on-site visit.
“We have approximately 60 additional Air Force programs in one of the various accreditation steps or stages,” Ms. Bird said.
Ms. Bird also noted that a single Air Force base may have multiple child development programs, depending on the number of children served and number of
faculty members required by the NAEYC.
At Ramstein, Janna Keller, CDC and family child care director, initially faced some
challenges bringing the Ramstein programs in line with the new accreditation standards, but now feels the changes have brought great improvements to the care and family interaction in their overseas child development programs.
“Familiarizing ourselves and the classroom teachers with a little over 400 new criteria for the NAEYC accreditation was our greatest challenge,” Ms. Keller said.
Ms. Keller also added that being overseas, the CDCs encounter constant staff turnover because family members comprise a large majority of the work force, and those who are hired stay only as long as their sponsor’s assignment allows.
However, the new NAEYC criteria allowed the Ramstein CDC to better share the program’s story and to become better communicators with the parents enrolled in the program, Ms. Keller said.
“We have built community relationships that were not present in the past,” she said, “and the parents that took on an active role through evaluating our policies and procedures, being advocates for our program, and giving us suggestions for improvements have become stronger leaders within the programs. It has made us a closer CDC community.”
Ms. Keller also said the Air Force helped by providing initial training and preparation for the new NAEYC accreditation standards.
“Programs were allowed the time they needed to adequately prepare. By connecting bases through small group training, resources and ideas were shared. I believe this has attributed to the Air Force’s successful accreditation rates,” she said.
“Historically, Air Force child development programs have led the other services with the highest number of accredited CDCs – 99 percent – attaining this hallmark of quality,” Ms. Bird said.
For information about Air Force child development centers, visit the Air Force services child development programs Web site at http://public.afsv.net/FMP/ChildProgramsDotCom/CDC.htm.
