DES-Contracted Bright Beginnings Preschool & Childcare Receives Arizona’s First-Ever Afterschool Program Accreditation
Bright Beginnings Preschool celebrating its afterschool program accreditation on June 15, 2023.
Preschools and child care providers go through rigorous training and certification processes to enhance their skills in caring for children ages birth-to-five, but in many instances, school-aged children are being cared for by these same programs as well. This is the case for Bright Beginnings Preschool & Childcare in Peoria, which became the first to receive the Arizona Center for Afterschool Excellence’s (AzCASE) accreditation through its Pathway to Accreditation program.
The six-month Pathway to Accreditation program prepares child care providers with training and support so it can accommodate outstanding care for school-aged children. The program is sponsored by DES, and licensed afterschool child care providers like Bright Beginnings, are currently eligible to receive financial assistance towards accreditation.
Theresa Christiansen, the owner and director of Bright Beginnings, wanted to find an accreditation program that provided expertise on caring for school-aged children, which made up more than half of the children at her center. She tasked one of her long-time staff members, Rod Edwards, or “Mr. Mommy” as the kids endearingly call him, to find such a program. That’s when the AzCASE Pathway to Accreditation Program journey began.\
“It was a lot of work, but [AzCASE] made it easy,” said Theresa, during a pizza party celebration with the kids at her center. “It was something not daunting, and if we had questions they were very receptive to them and they answered them.”
After Rod and Theresa let AzCASE know they were interested in the Pathway to Accreditation program, they went through an orientation and were assigned an AzCASE guide who would help them along the way. The guide has experience working in the field of school-aged youth development and would be able to answer questions and provide any resources that were necessary.
The AzCASE Pathway to Accreditation also provides programs with the Arizona Quality Out of School Assessment Tool, an online self-assessment process where the provider can fill out what they think they need to work on. They’re then given resources to develop a continuous improvement plan with steps to reach high-level quality and AzCASE accreditation, which after six months, Bright Beginnings successfully accomplished.
From left to right: Jessica Flowers (AzCASE), Hiroko Flores (DES), Rod Edwards (Bright Beginnings), Paula Wilson (AzCASE), Courtney Sullivan (AzCASE) and Melissa Busby (DES).
Among the pizza party attendees celebrating the new accreditation were Courtney Sullivan, Executive Director of AzCASE, and Hiroko Flores, Program Development Manager at DES.
“It is great seeing a program like this so dedicated to making sure the kids and families that they’re working with are getting the highest quality programming,” said Courtney. “We spend a lot of focus on that zero-to-five age group because they’re so vulnerable, but these [school-aged] kids are still vulnerable and need all the extra quality care that they can get, so we’re just really glad.”
Hiroko said how rewarding it was to see all the hard work and effort pay off in person, and view the thrilled faces of staff and children alike.
Even if the children were thrilled mainly for the pizza.
“I’m very, very excited. This contract was finalized back in August 2021, and because this is the accreditation program’s first one for after school programs in Arizona, AzCASE really had to start from scratch, but it made it more exciting to have the first accredited program. And many more are to come,” said Hiroko.
Visit the DES Division of Child Care website to learn more about child care programs.