Spotlight/Showcase

Spotlight on:  MnAEYC and MnSACA:  Supporting Professionals, Promoting Quality

Article submitted by: Brian Siverson-Hall, MnSACA and MnAEYC executive director and Amy Loechler, Umbrella Strategic Alliance project coordinator

The Minnesota Association for the Education of Young Children (MnAEYC) and the Minnesota SchoolAge Care Alliance (MnSACA) are statewide professional membership organizations working on behalf of professionals who work with children and youth. MnAEYC focuses on early childhood and MnSACA focuses on school-age care. Both organizations focus on professional development, program improvement and accreditation, and public policy.

We recently adopted a new tagline for the organizations which is “Supporting Professionals, Promoting Quality." We believe our role is to provide educational support, program support, and informational support to those who work in the early care and education and out-of-school time fields.

MnAEYC and MnSACA have long been a part of accreditation efforts within the state, having played a major role in the development of the Minnesota Core Competencies for Early Childhood and School Age practitioners, and serving as state affiliates of national organizations. MnSACA is the state affiliate of the National AfterSchool Association and MnAEYC is the state affiliate of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

We have numerous supports which can be found on our Web site at www.mnaeyc-mnsaca.org. This is also a place to find out about membership opportunities that provide weekly email informational alerts, public policy information, training resources, program improvement resources, and quarterly newsletters.
Thank you for your interest in MnSACA and MnAEYC. We are  here to Support Professionals and Promote Quality for our field!

The Umbrella Strategic Alliance is a collaborative partnership between the Minnesota School Age Care Alliance (MnSACA),the Minnesota Association for the Education of Young Children (MnAEYC), the Minnesota Licensed Family Child Care Association (MLFCCA) and the Alliance for Early Childhood Professionals (AECP).

The overall mission of these membership organizations revolves around the care and education of children and youth, ensuring professional development opportunities exist for their caregivers. Together we are able to support programs as they pursue program improvements through various projects and initiatives.

The Umbrella Strategic Alliance works closely and collaboratively with Parent Aware, CCR&R and MNStreams. We recognize accreditation as one of the key elements of a quality rating system support programs that participate in Parent Aware. Through a tiered system, the USA provides a variety of services to programs in child care centers, family child care homes and school-age care sites. These services include a hotline to answer questions, an initial face-to-face visit to assess the needs of a program and in-depth consultation services to support quality initiatives or accreditation. These services are available to programs statewide. Many programs can also qualify to receive consultation services at no charge and receive additional funding as it becomes available to support quality initiatives or accreditation.

The Umbrella Strategic Alliance is currently involved in the following projects:

• United Way-Getting Project: Supporting family child care providers in the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Wayzata school districts implementing creative curriculum and school readiness in collaboration with CCR&R.
• Accreditation Facilitation Project: Supporting early child care centers, family providers and school-age programs in the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Blue Earth Nicollet and Wayzata school districts pursuing national accreditation.
• Quality Initiative Project: Supporting early child care centers, family providers and school-age programs statewide with quality improvement initiatives.
• MN Afterschool Accreditation Pilot: Supporting school-age programs pursuing accreditation.

We are excited to announce the following programs that successfully completed Minnesota’s first  Accreditation Faciliation Project: 

Family Providers:  Mary Jo Bjornson of St. Paul and Catherine Richardson of Mankato  Mary Jo recently completed her bachelor’s degree at Metropolitan State University on a T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® MINNESOTA  scholarship. Catherine will be attending South Central College in Mankato this fall.

Early Child Care Centers: King Family Child development Center, St. Paul; LaCreche Early Learning Center, Minneapolis; Mary T. Wellcome Child Development Center, Minneapolis; Wayzata Community Church Nursery School.

School-age Programs: Wayzata Homebase programs Birchview and Oakwood of Plymouth.

To learn more about the Umbrella Strategic Alliance contact Amy Loechler, project coordinator, at (651) 646-8689 or
1 (800) 711-5690 or aloechler@mnaeyc.org.
Online at www.mnaeyc-mnsaca.org

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