Standard 7: NAEYC Accreditation Criteria for Families Standard

Program Standard: The program establishes and maintains collaborative relationships with each child’s family to foster children’s development in all settings. These relationships are sensitive to family composition, language, and culture.

Rationale: Young children’s learning and development are integrally connected to their families. Consequently, to support and promote children’s optimal learning and development, programs need to recognize the primacy of children’s families, establish relationships with families based on mutual trust and respect, support and involve families in their children’s educational growth, and invite families to fully participate in the program.

Within each of the 10 NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards are topic areas that highlight the big ideas to more fully express the meaning and value of the standard. Each topic area includes criteria that further define the meaning of quality in that area. The topic areas are identified by letters (A, B, C, etc.). The number of topic areas within a standard varies. The following chart presents the topic areas for this standard. Click on the topic area to link to the accreditation criteria.

Topic Area

7.A.
Knowing and Understanding the Program’s Families

7.B.
Sharing Information Between Staff and Families

7.C.
Nurturing Families as Advocates for Their Children