About Us
Providing Quality Standards
Missouri Accreditation provides quality standards for child care programs serving children from birth through school age within the state of Missouri. Missouri Accreditation functions in areas beyond the scope of state licensing requirement for child care facilities. Those regulations exist mainly to ensure the basic health and safety of the children in those programs. To receive Missouri Accreditation, a program has to exceed those standards. We focus on qualitative aspects of the physical, social, emotional and intellectual growth opportunities afforded to children enrolled in center -based and home-based childhood care and education programs.
Founded in 1981, Missouri Accreditation is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental agency. Since 1984, we've served as an institutional accrediting agency, providing leadership in the development of standards and performance based assessment. We provide ongoing monitoring, evaluation and recognition of programs who've achieved accreditation. Programs that pursue and become accredited do so on a voluntary basis.
In short, we strive to make a difference in the quality of early childhood care and education through our commitment to establishing high quality standards - standards of excellence - for children, Missouri's future.
Setting the Standards of Excellence
Accreditation involves a thorough evaluation of aspects of program quality. Areas which accreditation covers includes:
- Children's Relationships and Interactions - positive relationships between children, and children and staff and families are evaluated.
- Physical Environment - a safe, healthy indoor and outdoor spaces including suitable equipment and supplies are evaluated.
- Programming/Curriculum - a developmentally appropriate program is required.
- Program/Family Connections - strong communication regarding the individual progress of individual children between staff and parents as well as communication about the program as a whole
- Administration - proper class sizes for age groups, ample employee qualifications, sufficient staff to child ratios, employee handbooks, parent handbooks, ongoing training for staff
- Health, Safety and Nutrition - review practices for maintaining a safe and healthy environment for everyone in the program.
When you deal with a child care program which has received Missouri Accreditation, you can be assured that this program has worked very hard to achieve and maintain a high degree of performance. You'll be certain that program prides itself on continuous improvement.
The need for accreditation:
Teaching children is one of the nation's most important jobs. The future of the nation depends on how well it's done. Accreditation sets the standard that will ensure that the job is done to the best of our current knowledge and ability. Obtaining Missouri Accreditation benefits parents, children and the institution. In a broader sense, it protects the public's interest. It provides a means to verify the quality of services rendered. The feedback that Missouri Accreditation provides to programs helps them to constantly improve their skills and performance, so that standards - and child achievement - can continue to grow.