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!

Tips for parents saying goodbye to children at daycare such as: Parents ensuring they have extra time at drop-off, always saying goodbye and several tips for caregivers as they try to comfort the distressed little one.  Read on...

Written by: Katina Synder, Mother of 2, BA in Public Relations
Ever made a Leprechaun Trap?  Here's a cute one that Shelby, Age 5, made (with a little help from her mom).

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

Businesses and Early Childhood Education

Brief overview of the importance of Art in the Young Child's Life

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is the agency that protects us, as consumers, from risks of death or injury from products, including children's toys, cribs, car seats and more.  This post is to let you know where to get the information they are giving you.  Did you know they have a YouTube station, a twitter feed, an app for your iPhone or droid?  You didn't?  Well look at this!

Here are some fun Thanksgiving crafts!  They have been compiled from many different resources, including members of our very own childcareinfo.com community.  Enjoy!

A grant of forty million dollars, to create, execute and manage The National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning to improve the Head Start program,  has been awarded  to Washington University in collaboration with University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, Iowa State University, University of South Florida, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Summary: Families All Matter is a project created by aMaze, a not-for-profit organization that focusing on nurturing the values of family, diversity and community.  A great program that provides curriculum to pre-school and grade school teachers to help with tough conversations about diversity in people's families.

That’s right!  We are here.  What an event.  It spans across the Anaheim convention center and neighboring hotels.  There are more signs driving in for where NAEYC than Disneyland! 

My colleague Cindy and I are in complete fascination and admiration of the people that come here from all over the world to learn more so he or she can provide better education and care to children.

We have met people from all over the United States from New York to South Dakota to Michigan to Puerto Rico!  We’ve met several people from Canada, the Bermudas and believe it or not, the United Kingdom!  They are representatives of their institutions, professors of their universities child development programs, directors of centers, teachers from public and private centers, Head Start teachers and facilitators, family day care providers and even parents, not affiliated with anyone.

The exhibitors that are here range from furniture for children to publishers and playground equipment to organizations like our neighbor...

A short synopsis on a longer excerpt about a new proposal for the administration of Head Start and federal pre-K programs.

Tweet Until we have our child care initiatives page set up and running, I thought I would blog about a teacher's award that came across a twitter feed. It is sponsored by Tylenol and part of The Terri Lynne Lokoff Child Care Foundation.

The award is meant to encourage and recognize early child care teachers for "providing quality care and education." The award goes to fifty teachers that applied for it and of the top ten, one is awarded the Helen Marks Award as National Child Care Teacher of the Year.

Check out the application process, there is a project required as part of the process in which you will be asked to design an enhancement project for the children in your classroom. Sounds like a great and fun challenge to me!

Award ranges from $500 - $1,000 dollars for the teachers personal use and an additional $500 to put toward the project in your application. They even fly you out and pay for hotel accommodations so you can attend the ceremony that is held in Pennsylvania....

“The mission of the World Forum Foundation is to promote an on-going global exchange of ideas on the delivery of quality services for young children in diverse settings.”

The world forum on Early Care and Education is meeting again in Honolulu in May of 2011.  Your peers from around the world with the same passion as you, to provide the best opportunities, education and care possible for children, get together and share ideas.