For Child Care Providers

Resources for those taking care of young children.

Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) – Once licensed family child care providers join, they submit claims each month showing they provided nutritious food to the children. They are then reimbursed using a formula. – https://www.fns.usda.gov/cacfp

Connecticut Early Childhood Alliance – https://www.earlychildhoodalliance.com/

Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC) – https://www.ctoec.org/

  • Guide providers through the licensing and background checks process
  • Offer training, scholarships, and development opportunities to professionals to build their careers
  • Provide funding to programs that offer services to families 

State Department of Education – https://portal.ct.gov/sde

Connecticut Early Childhood Education Cabinet – http://www.ctearlychildhood.org/

Early Care and Education Consortium – The Voice for Child Care Providers – http://www.ececonsortium.org/

Early Childhood Teaching, Development and Learning from Head Start.  Includes 15-minute training videos. – https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/ncecdtl

Early Educator Central – Training for infant-toddler educators – https://www.ececonsortium.org/

EdAdvance – Training and support. Some is specific for the communities in their district (and Southington is not) but some, with the OEC, is open to all in CT. For specialists with knowledge of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act as it relates to young children, email homelessinfo@edadvance.org. – https://www.edadvance.org/

National Association for Family Child Care – https://nafcc.org/

National Association for the Education of Young Children – https://www.naeyc.org/

National Program for Playground Safety – https://playgroundsafety.uni.edu/

National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education – https://nrckids.org/

Nature Explore, a collaborative program of the Arbor Day Foundation and Dimensions Educational Research Foundation – https://natureexplore.org/

Best College’s list of best online bachelor’s in early childhood education programs – https://www.bestcolleges.com/education/bachelors/early-childhood-education/

Liability insurance – Child Care Liability Insurance Quote | Assure Child Care

We have started compiling a list of organizations that will come to your site to do programs rather than taking field trips. Check out the Dropbox folder with an editable list (that we invite you to add to) and flyers. Once you click on the spreadsheet, note that you need to click on the ‘Open’ button in the upper right corner to pick which spreadsheet software you want to use for editing.

Our friends at The Early Care Connection (the Middlesex Coalition for Children, CT Early Childhood Alliance, and Childcare for CT’s Future) are maintaining a list of links related to Early Childhood Advocacy, the Childcare System, Employee and Employer Information, and Federal and State Advocacy at https://www.earlycareconnection.org/