Children’s Village, located in Doylestown, has earned accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) — the world’s largest organization working on behalf of young children.
NAEYC Accreditation is a rigorous and transformative quality-improvement system that uses a set of 10 research-based standards to collaborate with early education programs to recognize and drive quality-improvement in high-quality early learning environments. More than 6,000 programs are currently accredited by NAEYC—less than 10% of all child care centers, preschools and kindergartens nationally achieve this recognition.
Children’s Village opened on the Doylestown Hospital campus in 1985 and was the first nationally accredited center in Bucks County and, as such, has served as a model for early childhood education throughout Bucks and Montgomery counties. The center’s programs serve area children ages six weeks through full-day kindergarten. In addition to NAEYC accreditation, Children’s Village maintains a STAR-4 rating (the highest) in the Pennsylvania Keystone STARS Quality Initiative.
The former Children’s Village facility was destroyed by a tornado in August 2020. Soon after, Doylestown Health announced that a rebuild would be a new priority of ONE VISION: The Campaign for Doylestown Health. Support for rebuilding Children’s Village will allow the program to return from its temporary locations to Doylestown Hospital’s flagship campus in a new and upgraded facility incorporating best practices in safety and early childhood learning commensurate with our standards for excellence and reputation for compassionate care
To earn NAEYC accreditation, Children’s Village went through an extensive self-study and quality-improvement process, followed by an on-site visit by NAEYC Assessors to verify and ensure that the program met each of the 10 program standards, and hundreds of corresponding individual criteria. NAEYC-accredited programs are always prepared for unannounced quality-assurance visits during their accreditation term, which lasts for five years.
“Reaccreditation affirms that despite the challenges we have faced over the past few years, our commitment to families and to the field of early childhood education remain strong,” said Children’s Village Director Bernadette Rodrigo. “We are proud to continue the tradition of being NAEYC accredited and offering a high quality program where children, families and staff work together to build a community of learners.”
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