Some of the many reasons we are grateful for our child care providers...

Let’s play a quick game.  I say “CACFP Federal Regulations” and then you think “____________.”  Did that blank space involve an eye-roll and maybe even a “#&$%?”  I think if you participate in the food program at some point the mere mention of “regulations” will bring about a flurry of a heartbeat and a negative thought.   I have a question for you though, did you know that you have a say in those final rules that you ultimately have to follow?  Well, you do!  Once a rule/regulation has been proposed there is a period of time in which public comment is encouraged and accepted

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a free webinar presented by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) which is in the process of changing its name to Child Care Aware, America. The webinar was about the federal budget process and how it specifically affects the child care industry.  Grace Reef the Chief of Policy and Evaluation gave the webinar and explained, in an easy to understand way, how the federal budget process is directly affecting child care and what we might do to make a difference.

Prior to a brief overview of what she covered...

The Week of the Young Child™ begins April 22, 2012.  NAEYC has all the information you need to get started.  If it's too late to begin planning for this year, start for next year!  

Learning opportunities directed toward the child care professional are not lacking, but sometimes it can be hard to find those perfect learning opportunities or maybe you just don’t have time to look.  ChildCareInfo.com has just made that process easier for you!  Find out how the Learning Center can help you!

Heard of Picnik or Faceinhole.com?  Find out how you can use these two sites to set up projects for your classroom!

Recently there has been a big push toward marketing with social media, which I have been and will continue to be a big part of.  Last weekend, at the National Child Care Association (NCCA) conference, I was in a session with Kris Murray, which focused on a different kind of marketing: strengthening relationships with the parents of the children in your care.  Kris also encourages social media marketing but this particular session didn't address social media.  Kris defines marketing as the process of getting and keeping customers.

This workshop focused on retaining your current parents as part of your marketing strategy.  Strategically consider your retention rates, know why families leave your program, and realize how cost effective it is to keep your current families.

Kris mentioned that the lifetime value of one family could range from $20,000 to $60,000. ...

I attended the National Child Care Association conference (NCCA) this weekend and was struck by an accidental but consistent theme by many of the presenters.

The presenters’ successes were embedded in stories of:

Taking Risks
Facing Their Fear of Failure
Adjusting When they Did Fail
Honoring Failures
Being Resilient and Learning to Let Go

The National Child Care Association Leadership conference is in full swing.  Get a glimpse of some of the things these private sector child care centers are talking and learning about.

The National Child Care Association Leadership conference is in full swing.  Get a glimpse of some of the things these private sector child care centers are talking and learning about.

Grab your cowboy boots and hats, The Sponsor Association's (TSA) Conference is taking place in Austin, Texas in 2012!  To be exact, SAVE THE DATE for September 20-22, 2012.

The National Head Start Association wants to share with the world the lives that Head Start has touched since it was founded.  This campaign is called “27 Million Windows,” to showcase the window of opportunity that Head Start provides to children raised within the walls of poverty.

You can make a difference in the lives and well-being of the children in your care by participating in the Let's Move Child Care Initiative.

ChildCareInfo.com is creating a Learning Center section.  We want to provide the child care profession with webinars, in-person trainings and other ways to continue development in the child care profession, this includes business management skills.

We are searching the web for different active webinar schedules, trainings, videos and podcasts but we won’t be able to find them all!

ChildCareInfo is asking for your assistance.  Either comment below or send in companies, individuals or entities that are providing trainings that you think are relevant to the child care industry.

We will need: Contact Name (if available) Website Link Training Specialization (topics) Type of Training (webinar, podcast, video, in-person) Regional or National If you would like to be featured within the Learning Center or on ChildCareInfo.com contact me here. This is what...

Did you have any New Year resolutions that had to do with health, activity and nutrition?  Was it for yourself or your child care program? 

If your healthy lifestyle resolution was for yourself why don’t you expand it to your child care environment?!

USE CHOICE to help you!

ConAgra Foods Foundation Community Impact Grants Program (CIG) intends to partner with “high quality organizations to close service gaps and increase children’s access to food and nutrition resources so they can live happy, healthful lives” (CIG Overview and 2012 Eligibility Guidelines). 

What are the grant awards? They’ll range from $10,000 to $75,000.  Average grant size will be around $25,000.

Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge has been in the news quite a bit since the challenge was announced and now the winners have been announced!  Nine states were awarded the funds today.

Find out what it's all about and get links to the states applications and reviews.

Child care providers – find some great activities, ideas for lessons, ideas for food and resources in general.

Not-for-profits – find people reading relevant books or posting  information about being non-profits and get the word out there about what you are up to.

Looking through my notes from the CCFP Roundtable conference 2011 and feeling very lucky that I had the opportunity to attend.  One of my favorite workshops that I was able to attend was “A Taste of the World: Bringing Multicultural Foods and Activities to Your Children” given by 3 women from the Learning Care Group.  Donna Pomerson, Sherrie Gomez, and Staci Larsen provided great examples and materials to take home about bringing multicultural foods and activities into the child care environment.  They said I could share this with you and I am so excited to do so right now!

URL shorteners can help you understand the affect you are having with your social media!  Find out what they are and why the can help you.  Read more here.

Report says more and more parents are using alternative schedules for their children's vaccinations. Is this affecting your child care business or if you are a parent how you choose your child care setting?

In the past few weeks there has been a lot of media coverage on unionizing family child care homes.  The nature of this topic is quite contentious and I wanted to open up the room to different ideas.  Please be respectful of each other’s views and opinions and recognize we are all humans with feelings.

I just returned home from The Sponsor Association (TSA) conference with a new sense of needs from our sponsors about social media.  I did two workshops about social media and thought I would have to do some convincing as to why social media is important and how it can be used to their benefit.  Well, Surprise! I didn’t have to do any convincing. 

After reflecting on the desire to use and “do” social media and the readiness to hunker down and get it started I am going to dedicate a blog to social media.  Thoughts or news going on in social media, how you can use social media and what you might want to do with it. 

All of these posts will be written for the novice to average user and many times focused on the child care profession.

I want to show you that you can do this, all of it.  Is worth your while and I will provide you additional tools to help you make that possible!

Tell me what you would like to see on the blog and I would like to try and give you answers.  You aren’t alone. ...

What do you know about the Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge?  Find out a little bit more about the final application here!

I was at the Food Research and Action Center conference in February this year and was impressed by the things different organizations and states were doing to encourage healthy eating and exercise.  I was similarly disappointed that I didn't know these resources were being created until I had the advantage of hearing them spoken about.  I am happy to say Team Nutrition has added to their resources section an area where you can view each state's resources that include contact information, funded resources created and MORE!

What is the Team Nutrition Training Grant?  The grant is for state agencies to put together different ways to train and communicate guidance about the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) guidelines and regulations as well as the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in regard to schools and child care settings.

What kind of actions are taken with this grant?   Here are a just a few bullet points from the Team Nutrition Grants home...

A recent study has been released regarding safe and unsafe temperatures of preschool children's sack lunches.  MSNBC and the Today show have provided some information about this today. 

Here are some take-away bullet points:

Where did the study take place?  Texas Child Care Centers How many lunches were tested? 705 Were there icepacks in the lunches?  45 percent  had at least one ice pack What is the "unsafe" range?  "Unsafe,  as the researchers defined it, was anything that sat for more than two hours between 39 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit" (Carroll, 9 out of 10 preschoolers' lunches reach unsafe temperatures) How many were in the "safe" range after testing?  Refrigerated: 1 percent, Room Temperature: 2 percent What does this mean?  When food gets into the "unsafe" range foods are more perceptible to bacteria which creates foodborne illnesses.  Do we know what the consequences are and what kind of diseases the preschoolers are at risk for?  No, the gap in the study is determining the actual risk of foodborne illness and what that illness might be that the children are being exposed to....

Child Care Centers, Family Child Care, In-Home Care, and Family, Friend, Neighbor Care.  What are these different types of care all about?  Read on to learn more.

The office of the Inspector General's Office released the report "Most Early Head Start Teachers Have the Required Credentials, But Challenges Exist."

Getting pediatricians involved in literacy.  Brilliant.

Reach Out and Read is an "evidence-based nonprofit organization that promotes early literacy and school readiness in pediatric exam rooms nationwide by giving new books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud."  Reading aloud practically becomes a prescription from physician to patient.

I see family child care providers all over this resort learning in pre-conference sessions or gearing up for 2 full days of workshops to better affect our children's lives.  It is fun and inspirational and I am really excited to get to chat with them. We are setting up our Minute Menu booth with fliers about not just our products but fliers educating providers about the Child and Adult Care Food Program, if they don't already know about it.  We also have really fun stuff to give away like nail files, mirrors, M&M's packaged in a very creative way and some stress balls for lucky individuals. We will also be doing demonstrations of Kids Pro and ChildCareInfo.com, listening to suggestions and getting to hear how we can provide a better service to people providing a service so great to our society. The big reception and grand opening is tonight and I must get on to finish setting up our booth! Hope to see you around if you are here, make sure you say hi!...