Christian Child Care renews accreditations and acts to serve urgent community needs

 

[November 09, 2018] 

LINCOLN 

The year 2018 has been an eventful and exciting for Christian Child Care (CCC) for a confluence of reasons. The organization that provides child care for young children has been re-accredited by the National Accreditation Commission (NAC), enrolled several children affected by Little Lambs Learning Center recent closing, continued to partner with Oddfellows, and has made several updates to the old building.

Christian Child Care Director Libby Canady says, “CCC is DCFS Licensed and nationally accredited through the National Accreditation Commission (NAC), and is rated as an ExceleRate Illinois Gold Circle of Quality Child Care Center.”

Canady said what it means is that “we have exceeded the DCFS Licensed standards, rose to meet the NAC accreditation requirements that go above and beyond licensing requirements - rich, high quality learning environments, lower staff to child ratios, strong child - teacher interactions, best practice businesses standard -, and have met the high standards of highly qualified trained staff whom are committed to annual on-going training and education to be the best teachers for their learners.”

CCC went through a rigorous process with many hours of paperwork and classroom observations to receive the accreditation.

The recent closing of Little Lambs Learning Center meant that many families had to search for new options for child care. Canady said, “When CCC heard the announcement of Little Lambs Learning Center closing, our thoughts immediately went to the families and staff at their facility and we knew we had to do something to support our community.”

Canady said, “The Christian Child Care Board of Directors, administrative staff, and teaching staff immediately took action to discover options, what next steps needed to be taken, [and how] to implement more child care openings for our community. We knew our time would be the biggest hurdle.”

Canady contacted CCC’s DCFS licensing representative Connie Long to obtain information about expansion options. She also talked to the city of Lincoln fire marshal to discover potential safety and capacity issues and city of Lincoln Building and Safety Officer Wes Woodhall to gather information about permits and anything obstacles that may be in the way.

Canady said, “After a week of research, meetings, and more meetings to determine next steps, CCC’s Board of Directors approved a plan to expand our license to serve more families as soon as possible.”

With just a few weeks to get ready, Canady said, “Teaching staff rallied together to clean, organize, and complete room changes to make more room for more care to support Little Lamb’s displaced families.

Once all the planning, moving and license processes were completed, CCC had created enough room to welcome 24 Little Lamb’s families –one-third of the families that were left without care.”

Canady said, “Unfortunately there are still approximately 50 families left without care and an undetermined amount of families who were on a Little Lambs waitlist, as well as the waitlist for Christian Child Care.”

Canady said, “CCC also began to gather community interest in addressing the urgent need for additional care.”

Helping to address needs are the Oddfellows, who are CCC’s property owners and partner with CCC.
Melissa Richards, President of the Children’s Home Board said, “The building that Christian Childcare rents was built in 1961 and was an orphanage run by the Oddfellows. The brick house on the property was used for the administrator of the orphanage.”

Richards said, “When there was not a need for the orphanage, it was closed, and the Oddfellows attempted to run a childcare day care. After not much success the Oddfellows partnered with Christian Child Care and they have run the daycare ever since. The Children's Home Board of the Oddfellows maintains this building and three other buildings on the property.”

Canady said that besides helping maintain the buildings, Oddfellows is “most importantly a partner with CCC to offer quality childcare for Logan County [and] has played a critical role in the success of Christian Child Care. Odd Fellows has shown continued commitment over the last 15 years of making sure that CCC has a building that is safe, usable, and comforting for the care of children.”

Over the years that has meant upgrades to the building. Richards said, “We have made many improvements to the Christian Child Care facility. A new roof was put on in 2016, new lights have been installed in the building over the past several months, and we just completed the paving of the driveway and parking lot.”

Canady said, “Members of their organization have committed time, financial resources, and charitable philosophies to ensure that Christian Child Care is here for its community.”

Looking ahead, the upcoming year promises to be another eventful year as it marks 30 years of providing child care. Canady said, “Christian Child Care is excited to celebrate its 30th anniversary in September 2019. This anniversary marks the partnership of a community and the importance of high-quality childcare environments for the children. We would love to get the community involved in celebrating with us.”

[Angela Reiners]