Provider Consultation and Coaching

Once you are registered with Early Achievers, Child Care Action Council offers consultation and coaching on all topics related to your child care environment, including child guidance, circle time, parent communication, working with children’s special needs, lesson planning, curriculum and administration. Child Care Action Council offers individual orientation sessions once you are signed up for Early Achievers through your MERIT account.

You can view our Early Achievers Services Agreement by clicking on the links below:

Customized Training for Centers

CCAC offers customized classes for center directors who want to provide a class for an entire staff. Customized classes for centers:

• Are based on a center’s current needs and goals.
• Provide an entire staff with the same foundation of knowledge.
• Are fully aligned with Early Achievers.
• Are offered in collaboration with Early Achievers coaches, who can reinforce learning.
• Can be very affordable: About $100 per hour, regardless of group size. Talk to CCAC about ways to reduce the cost by partnering with another center or by opening your class to child care providers in the community.

Customized training must be scheduled by the following deadlines:

• By Aug. 30 for Oct.-Dec. classes
• By Nov. 27 for Jan.-Mar. classes
• By Feb. 28 for Apr.-June classes
• By May 29 for July-Sept. classes

For more information on customized training, call Heidi DeVries at 360-972-4783 or email at heidi.devries@ccacwa.org.

Infant Toddler Consultation (Birth to Three Quality Initiative)

The Child Care Action Council is funded by DCYF to support Early Achievers sites that accept infants and toddlers on WCCC subsidy in Grays Harbor, Lewis, north Mason, Pacific, and Thurston counties. Consultation is available free of charge to infant and/or toddler teachers in areas such as:

• Mental health support (behavior issues)
• Developmental screening
• Interactions
• Environments

If your child care facility is interested in support with infants or toddlers, please contact your Early Achievers coach and ask them to refer you for services. For questions about infant toddler services, contact call Heidi DeVries at 360-972-4783 or email at heidi.devries@ccacwa.org.

Department of Children, Youth, and Families

• Early Achievers for Families
• Learn more about DCYF’s Early Achievers Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)
• Child Care Aware of Washington’s Early Achievers web page here: English, Spanish
• Training library for early learning professionals
• MERIT (Managed Education and Registry Information Tool): CCAC classes provide STARS hours that are tracked for providers in MERIT, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families system for managing provider information. For more information on MERIT, CLICK HERE.

Basic Child Care Licensing Information

Individuals and agencies that offer child care must be licensed through the State of Washington with few exceptions. You need to be licensed if:

• You are caring for a child or children who are not related to you (except a close relative);
• The care is on an ongoing, regularly scheduled basis for the purpose of engaging in business.
• Persons who care for a relative’s, neighbor’s or friend’s child or children (known as Family, Friend and Neighbor {FFN}) with or without compensation, where the person providing care for periods of less than twenty-four hours does not conduct such an activity on an ongoing, regularly scheduled basis for the purpose of engaging business, which includes but is not limited to, advertising.  Such care is not required to be licensed but is an option for FFN providers.

For more information about licensing, visit the Department of Children, Youth, and Families Licensing web page.

• Child Care Check
• USDA Food program for Child Care
• Child Care Aware of WA
• Department of Children, Youth, and Families
• Child Care Aware of Washington Child Care Data
• National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral / Child Care Aware

Child Care Aware of Washington Scholarships for Child Care Professionals

Child Care Aware of Washington Scholarships supports early learning professionals who wish to expand and enrich their expertise in Early Childhood Education. Our goal is to advance the early learning field by improving the educational qualifications, incentives and retention of the early childhood workforce. Please visit Child Care Aware of Washington’s website for scholarship information.

Child Development Associate

Looking to earn a Child Development Associate (CDA) national credential? Here is what you need to know

• All CCAC classes can be applied toward the education requirements for your initial CDA or CDA renewal.
• CCAC class descriptions will indicate which CDA subject area the class applies to.
• The CDA is awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition. You can access their website and all the information you need at www.cdacouncil.org.
• As an alternative to the CDA, you may wish to consider a Washington early childhood initial certificate, which does not require renewal. Certificates are offered through your local community college.

This program is funded by Federal and State funds through