Parenting Resource
Arizona Kith & Kin Project
The Association for Supportive Child Care (ASCC) developed the Arizona Kith & Kin Project in 1999 to strengthen the quality of family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) child care providers.
Kith & Kin participants often include grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and other friends. The Project offers kith and kin providers a 14-week program of weekly small group support-training sessions. The groups are facilitated in both English and Spanish; however, Spanish is the predominant language.
Topics covered during the weekly meetings include: guidance and discipline, daily schedule planning, nutrition, parent/caregiver relationships and business practices, language and literacy, and brain development. The program:
- provides early childhood training and support to kith and kin child care providers
- increases participants’ knowledge of the elements of quality child care
- increases participants’ understanding of ways to challenge and stimulate young children
- increases participants’ knowledge of childhood injury prevention and distributes safety materials and equipment ASCC partners with more than 60 community organizations, including Head Start programs, resource centers, faith-based organizations, and schools to recruit participants and deliver services.
A 4-year evaluation of the program completed in 2016 found that FFN providers demonstrated increases on the following key quality indicators after completing the program:
- health and safety (environment and practices)
- materials
- provider-child communication patterns
- provider-child engagement
- provider sensitivity
- engagement in learning activities
- providers’ basic knowledge about child development.
The project is funded by the First Things First and the Valley of the Sun United Way.
Updated August 2017.
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