Accreditation Facilitation Projects

In many communities and states, local accreditation facilitation projects encourage the improvement efforts of child care centers, preschools and other early childhood programs. Accreditation facilitation projects often provide financial support and technical assistance to programs that are working to raise the quality of services they provide. Some projects also provide financial incentives for programs to earn accreditation.

It is important that facilitation projects understand the process of NAEYC Accreditation so that they may provide accurate information to programs.  Therefore, NAEYC has identified Erika Liliedahl as the liaison between the Academy and accreditation facilitation projects.

NAEYC offers the following support to those facilitating NAEYC Accreditation:

• Self-Study Kit purchase is available to accreditation facilitation projects and others who facilitate NAEYC accreditation. The fee is $395/kit (a discounted fee of $250 is offered to facilitation projects that meet specific criteria, see below for further information). Click here for a copy of this order form.

  Please note:  An early childhood program may use this order form to purchase additional self-study kits for their program, but this form does not enroll a program in self study.  Any program that purchases a self study kit for $395 will still be required to Enroll in Self Study (Step 1) prior to submitting their Application (Step 2), and pay the enrollment fee.   For more information about Enrollment and the other Four Steps of NAEYC Accreditation, click here or contact our Information Center by telephone  800-424-2460 and press 3 or email accreditation.information@naeyc.org.

• Registration for NAEYC's Accreditation Facilitation Project Online Database.  Registering your project on this database is free, and NAEYC encourages all facilitation projects to register and keep their profiles updated.  Registration is the first step for a facilitation project to become involved in other supports as listed below. To register, click here.
  Administrators of early childhood programs may access this database to find a facilitation project in their local area.
• Monthly conference calls. Conference calls are on the 2nd Thursday of each month from 2:00 to 3:00pm Eastern time and are facilitated by Erika Liliedahl.
• Access to a members-only online community where facilitation projects and others who facilitate NAEYC Accreditation share ideas and discuss various facilitation strategies.  Registration is automatic for projects that are registered on the online database (see 2nd bullet above); for others to request membership, contact Erika Liliedahl at eliliedahl@naeyc.org.

• A discount on the self study kit is available for accreditation facilitation projects that meet ONE of the following requirements:

• Funded by public money and works with 10 or more programs OR
• Funded by a private entity to provide facilitation services to ten or more programs that are not part of the same corporate structure.

• Accreditation facilitation projects that have questions about the NAEYC accreditation process, program standards or accreditation criteria should contact the Academy's Information Center  - contact information is below
• Another helpful resource for accreditation facilitation projects and the programs they work with is the NAEYC Accreditation Update.

For information about any of the information above, please contact Erika Liliedahl at eliliedahl@naeyc.org or 800-424-2460 ext 8312. 

Accreditation facilitation projects are not intended to replace a program's direct contact with the NAEYC Academy for specific questions that pertain to its program.  Program administrators are encouraged to contact the NAEYC Academy directly for assistance with program-specific issues of any type.  Questions should be directed to accreditation.information@naeyc.org or by telephone to the Academy's Information Center toll-free at 800-424-2460, then press 3.

In addition, the program administrator is responsible for making sure that NAEYC has the program's current contact information (address, phone and email address) so that communication from the NAEYC Academy can be received in a timely manner. Send any of these changes via email to qualityassurance@naeyc.org.