Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Division of Child Care and Western Kentucky University Partners with Local Agencies to Provide Support to In-Home Child Care Providers
Western Kentucky University and the Training and Technical Assistance Services Department (T/TAS) in Bowling Green KY., are proud to partner with Appalachian Early Childhood Network (AECN) to support in-home family child care providers of young children in the Eastern Mountain and Cumberland Regions. The service area will include 46 counties from Bracken to Leslie County and Harlan to Taylor County.
This newly established network was designed to ensure that In-Home family child care providers have the support they need to be successful business owners, provide a safe and healthy environment for young children to play and learn to get the early foundation they need to be successful in school and in life.
In 2018, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence and the Cabinet for Health and Family Services launched an initiative to increase access to high-quality family child care homes for infants and toddlers. The launch of this network is a tribute to the collaborative efforts of many Kentuckians to support strong early childhood development and child care as an important workforce support for a thriving Kentucky.
Kentucky law indicates that anyone offering care for more than three unrelated children in their home is to be regulated by the state by either becoming a registered provider, a Certified Family Child Care provider, or a Licensed Family Child Care Provider.
There are currently 216 certified Family Child Care Homes, 36 Licensed Family Child Care Homes, and 33 registered across the state, a number that has been declining over the past 10 years. This new network, dedicated to the recruitment of new in-home family child care providers and supporting our existing in-home family child care providers comes at a prime time to help rebuild the state’s child care system.
Through the COVID pandemic, Kentucky lost approximately 10% of its regulated child care providers which poses another issue to our workforce when families do not have safe care for their children so they can go to work.
For more information on how you can become a regulated provider or partner with the new network, contact your FCCN-KY Regional Specialist, Becky Stacy at 606-438-3431 or .
