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Week of the Young Child Photo Gallery

View the photo gallery from this year's Week of the Young Child Picnic in the Park.

Week of the Young Child, April 10-16, 2011

Greenville County will honor young children and all those who make a difference in children's lives during the National Week of the Young Child, April 10-16, 2011.

"All young children need and deserve high-quality early learning experiences that will prepare them for life, and Greenville County has a great opportunity to do our part to help young children," said Sherrie Dueno, manager of Child Care Resource & Referral of Upstate South Carolina. "Week of the Young Child is a time to recognize the importance of early learning for all young children, and to bring Greenville County together to help give all young children a great start." 

Week of the Young Child, sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), is an opportunity for early childhood programs across the country, including child care and Head Start programs, preschools and elementary schools, to hold activities to bring awareness to the needs of young children.  

Young children and their families depend on high-quality education and care, which help children get a great start, and bring lasting benefits to Greenville County. Week of the Young Child is a time to recognize the importance of early learning and early literacy, and to celebrate the teachers and policies that bring early childhood education to young children.

Click here to the view the flyer for this year's Picnic in the Park.

For more information, contact Sherrie Dueno, Child Care Resource & Referral of the Upstate, at 864-467-4800.

South Carolina Programs for Infant/Toddler Care Advanced Training

The United Way Child Care Resource & Referral technical assistance staff was invited to attend the 2011 South Carolina Programs for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) Advanced Training.

A portion of the training focused on how state systems work together to support young children and what can be done to better improve collaboration among agencies and across states. Dr. Peter Mangione from WestEd, PITC in California and his colleague, Gabby Lopez shared a new evaluation tool called the PITC Program Assessment Rating Scale (PARS). The PARS focuses on evaluating the quality of interactions among caregivers and the young children in their care. Dr. Mangione and Ms. Lopez reviewed the PARS and spent time discussing strategies for using the PARS as a technical assistance tool.

Greenville County Child Care Association Conference - Super Saturday

The annual Greenville County Child Care Association conference was a big success with 375 participants attending a variety of early childhood development workshops. A total of 54 conference participants attended the CCR&R sponsored training “Sensory Activities for Young Children,” which meet the annual child care licensing training requirements for child care providers in the topic area of curriculum.

CCR&R featured on WYFF 4

United Way's Child Care Resource and Referral was recently featured in a WYFF 4 report on helping parents find child care.

Click here to see the story.

Five receive Family Child Care credential

Child Care Resource & Referral recently honored five Family Child Care Providers (from left, Nina Curry, Cornelia Thomas, Olivia Drake, Pauline Wolk and Charita Dendy) for successfully completing the ABC 30-hour Family Child Care credential. The program includes South Carolina's "There's No Place Like Home" training modules designed especially for family child care providers.

This credential is required to become an ABC enhanced child care program, which moves a family child care provider from level C to a level B program. This interactive series teaches family child care providers how to care for children, keep them safe, prepare healthy meals, positive child guidance, age appropriate activities, increase parent involvement, business management and marketing their business.

In addition, each family child care provider was eligible to receive a $100 bonus upon successful completion of the 30-hour ABC Family Child Care Credential.

ABC is a child care program helping eligible families pay for child care services so they can work, go to school or receive training. ABC also helps make quality child care services available and accessible to the families. Child care programs voluntarily enrolled in ABC are reimbursed according to the quality of care provided. There are three levels of regulated care in the ABC system, with level A being the highest level of services.