Accreditation

Congratulations!
You have chosen a program for your child that is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). For over 30 years, families have relied on NAEYC Accreditation to ensure that high-quality education and care are provided in programs for young children.

What is NAEYC accreditation?

Early childhood programs accredited by NAEYC Accreditation of Early Learning Programs have voluntarily undergone a comprehensive process of internal self-study and continuous quality improvement.

What does high-quality mean for an early childhood program?

A high-quality program will provide a safe and nurturing environment while promoting healthy development for young children. NAEYC-Accredited programs demonstrate their quality by meeting the 10 NAEYC Early Learning Program Standards, which are research-based best practices for young children’s development and learning.

These standards were created with input from experts and educators from around the country.  The standards define what NAEYC-the world's largest organization of early childhood professionals-believes all early learning programs should provide.

According to these standards, all NAEYC-Accredited programs must:

1. Promote positive relationships for all children and adults to encourage each child's sense of individual worth.
2. Implement a curriculum that fosters all areas of child development: cognitive, emotional, language, physical, and social.
3. Use developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate and effective teaching practices.
4. Provide ongoing systematic, formal, and informal assessment tools to provide information on children's learning and development.
5. Promote the nutrition and health of children and protect children and staff from illness and injury.
6. Employ and support a teaching staff with the educational qualifications, knowledge, and professional commitment necessary to promote children's learning and development and to support families' diverse needs and interests.
7. Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with each child's family to foster children's development in all settings.
8. Establish relationships with and use the resources of the children's communities to support the achievement of program goals.
9. Provide a safe and healthful physical environment.
10. Implement policies, procedures, and systems that support stable staff and strong personnel, and fiscally responsible program management so all children, families, and staff have high-quality experiences.

NAEYC Accreditation is awarded for a five-year term.  During that period, programs submit annual reports documenting that they are consistently meeting the NAEYC program standards.  All NAEYC-Accredited programs are also subject to unannounced visits by skilled and reliable NAEYC program assessors to ensure that they continue to meet the standards.  To verify a program's accreditation, please visit www.naeyc.org.

For more information about the standards and NAEYC Accreditation, visit naeyc.org/academy.

For additional resources for your family, visit families.naeyc.org.