Child Life Center Earns the NAEYC Accreditation

The Arc of Evansville’s Child Life Center has achieved a new, five-year accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) – the world’s leading organization working on behalf of young children.

NAEYC Accreditation is a rigorous and transformative quality-improvement system that uses a set of 10 research-based standards to collaborate with early education programs to recognize and drive quality-improvement in high-quality early learning environments. “Achieving this accreditation is a significant accomplishment for our organization and validates our commitment to reaching the highest professional standards,” said Deidra R. Conner, President of The Arc of Evansville.  Director of Children’s Services, Emily Marroquin stated, “NAEYC Accreditation lets families in our community know that children in our high-quality program have teachers who create engaging classrooms, enhance relationships with families, and develop rich experiences for their students.”

The Arc of Evansville developed the innovative Child Life Center in 1993. Today, the Child Life Center offers child care and therapeutic programming to approximately 170 children each year between the ages of six weeks to five years, both with and without disabilities, in an inclusive environment.  The Child Life Center can accommodate children with multiple, complex, physical, developmental and emotional disabilities.  The Center promotes diversity and inclusion through educating students, parents, and the community with the best practices in early childhood development and special education.

To earn NAEYC Accreditation, The Arc of Evansville’s Child Life Center went through an extensive self-study and quality-improvement process, followed by an on-site visit by NAEYC Assessors to verify and ensure that the program met each of the ten program standards, and hundreds of corresponding individual criteria. NAEYC-accredited programs are always prepared for unannounced quality-assurance visits during their accreditation term, which lasts for five years.

In the 30 years since NAEYC Accreditation was established, it has become a widely recognized sign of high-quality early childhood education. More than 7,000 programs are currently accredited by NAEYC—less than 10 percent of all child care centers, preschools, and kindergartens nationally achieve this recognition. 

“NAEYC-Accredited programs bring our definitions of excellence for early childhood education to life each day,” said Kristen Johnson, senior director of Early Learning Program Accreditation at NAEYC. “Earning NAEYC Accreditation makes The Arc of Evansville’s Child Life Center an exemplar of good practice for families and the entire community.”

For more information about NAEYC Accreditation, visit the NAEYC website at https://www.naeyc.org/accreditation/early-learning-program-accreditation.