Encouraging Quality, Recognizing Excellence
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What does Accreditation mean to you and your child?
You are looking for the right place for your child. A place where he or she can learn, play and grow. A place that will be safe. An environment that is caring and stimulating. But how do you choose?
Like most parents, you visit child care centers and preschools near where you live or work. You talk to your friends. Where do they send their children? Are they satisfied? We know there is more you would like to know. So the National Early Childhood Program Accreditation (NECPA) program was established to ask the questions you wanted answered, to verify quality standards your child deserves. The NECPA program, refined and thoroughly tested, is a rigorous process that measures every that concerns your child.
We gathered detailed information from the people who know each program best: the staff and the parents of the children who attend the program. They respond to questionnaires on over 250 aspects of the program’s care, learning, safety and administration.
The NECPA’s independent professionals visit each site to verify the responses. The resulting in-depth profile of the program’s approach and operations is analyzed by the NECPA’s National Accreditation Council to determine if the program meets our rigorous standards and deserves the National Early Childhood Program Accreditation. And of course Accreditation is awarded to only programs that also meet all applicable governmental regulations. Once accredited, each center is reviewed annually by NECPA to verify that the quality standards are maintained.