International Resources

I tried several times over the past 8 weeks to make contact with some of my international colleagues and was unsuccessful. Since I was unable to make contact with them I began to research the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Centers (NACCRRA) website and subscribed to their e-newsletter. By familiarizing myself with their website I learned about all of the resource available to parents and providers, as well as their Public Policy Agenda. I have referred to them several times throughout this course as well as in courses in the past. I have recommended, and will continue to recommend this site. It is full of useful and important information regarding early childhood education.

International Resources

I tried several times over the past 8 weeks to make contact with some of my international colleagues and was unsuccessful. Since I was unable to make contact with them I began to research the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Centers (NACCRRA) website and subscribed to their e-newsletter. By familiarizing myself with their website I learned about all of the resource available to parents and providers, as well as their Public Policy Agenda. I have referred to them several times throughout this course as well as in courses in the past. I have recommended, and will continue to recommend this site. It is full of useful and important information regarding early childhood education.

Sharing Web Resources

The Website I chose to follow is National Association for Child Care Resource and referral Agencies (NACCRRA). Their Vision and Mission statement is: “NACCRRA, the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, is our nation’s leading voice for child care. We work with more than 600 state and local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies to ensure that families in every local community have access to quality, affordable child care. To achieve our mission, we lead projects that increase the quality and availability of child care, offer comprehensive training to child care professionals, undertake groundbreaking research, and advocate for child care policies that positively impact the lives of children and families” (www.naccrra.org).

While browsing through their website I found links too many different information portals on Early Childhood Education (ECE). They provide information on Public Policy issues and ECE Advocacy Campaigns, conferences and trainings for providers and parents, and State rankings and statistics on licensing regulations, cost, availability, of ECE programs. They also provide links to educational materials for parents guiding them on indicators to help determine a high quality program and an online child care searches, among much more.
Under the news tab I found links to articles from several different states addressing issues and challenges in ECE. There were several articles about children who died or were severly injured while in child care, parents and community members learning about child care providers criminal back grounds, and the differences in licensing standards across the country. As I stated before NACCRRA has a link dedicated to every states licensing regulations showing where they comply fully to NACCRA’s standards, where they fall short, and recommendations made to help improve licensing standards in each state. I found that Maryland ranked 11th in the country according to NACCRRA’s standards.

Their e-newsletter covers public Policy Issues, Articles and Links to what is happening in the Federal Government regarding issues on ECE. They also offer a variety of webinars for parents, and ECE professionals. I just attended one on Lobbying vs. Advocacy.

It is an interesting and very informative site for both ECE educators and parents. I highly recommend it.

References
www.naccrra.org. Retrieved from the World Wide Web.