The National Association for Family Child Care recently awarded the country’s top honor for high-quality family child care programs to Sandra Vincent, operator of Karan’s Kids in Russellville.

NAFCC accreditation is a rigorous quality improvement system that uses a set of more than 300 standards to recognize high-quality child care programs operating in the residence of the child care professional. In Alabama, almost 11 percent of licensed family child care programs have achieved this recognition – considerably higher than the two percent nationwide average.

“I was in college and saw a daycare at the college and was interested in the way they were doing things,” Vincent said. “I was real happy with my daycare but thought, ‘What could I do to be the very best I could be?’ I met my mentor Mamie, and she began teaching me about reaching for a little bit of higher goal.”

To earn her second NAFCC accreditation, Vincent went through an extensive self-study, training and quality improvement process with the support of her mentor, Mamie Thomas from the Family Child Care Partnerships program administered by Auburn University.

FCCP is a statewide quality enhancement, accreditation facilitation program funded through a contract with the Alabama State Department of Human Resources. FCCP delivers mentoring, training, technical assistance and financial support to licensed family child care providers in Alabama seeking to attain national accreditation.

“NAFCC accreditation is recognition of a family child care providers’ commitment to quality caregiving and to continuous quality improvement,” said Caroline Martin, managing director of Family Child Care Partnerships at Auburn. “A provider who attains NAFCC Accreditation has reached a high level of professional practice in family childcare, giving parents and families the assurance the program is nationally recognized as such.”