STARS Resource Links

Kentucky Links

• Kentucky Partnership for Early Childhood Services - The Kentucky Partnership for Early Childhood Services is a multiproject consortium housed at the University of Kentucky Human Development Institute. The partnership's goal is to provide research, training and outreach to support and enhance quality early care, intervention and education. Click on this link if you would like to locate the STARS Quality Coordinator (SQC) for your area to receive free technical assistance for participation in the STARS Program. 
• KIDS Now - The goal of the KIDS Now Initiative is that all young children in Kentucky are healthy and safe, possess the foundation that will enable school and personal success, and live in strong families that are supported and strengthened within their communities.  Click here for information on additional KIDS Now Initiatives.
• Division of Child Care - The Division of Child Care promotes quality child care through planning and initiatives that support the improvement and expansion of statewide child care services and resources. Click here for more information on the child care assistance program, professional development, and child care resource and referral agencies in Kentucky. 
• Early Care and Education Training Records Information System - ECE-TRIS is a database created to store and maintain individual training records for Early Care and Education professionals in Kentucky. ECE-TRIS creates an easily accessible, centralized location for training records.
• Division of Regulated Child Care - The Division of Regulated Child Care is responsible for licensing and investigating complaints against child day care programs, residential child caring facilities and child-placing agencies. The division also is responsible for certifying and investigating complaints against certified family child care homes.
• Child Care Regulations - Click on this link to access child care related regulations and statutes for Kentucky.

National Links

• The Child Care Bureau - The Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance, supports low-income working families through child care financial assistance and promotes children's learning by improving the quality of early care and education and afterschool programs.
• Council for Professional Recognition -The council promotes improved performance and recognition of professionals in early childhood care and education, the people who work with children from birth through 5 years of age in early childhood centers, family child care homes and as home visitors. The council administers the Child Development Associate (CDA) National Credentialing Program. Click here for more information on the CDA Program.
• Council on Accreditation - COA partners with human service organizations worldwide to improve service delivery outcomes by developing, applying, and promoting accreditation standards. COA's After School Standards represent a merging of NAA's standards and COA's eighth Edition Standards.
• National Association for the Education of Young Children - NAEYC is dedicated to improving the well-being of all young children.Membership is open to all individuals who share a desire to serve and act on behalf of the needs and rights of all young children. A major part of NAEYC's efforts to improve early childhood education is through different systems of accreditation for programs that are committed to meeting national standards of quality.
• The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies - NACCRRA helps ensure that families in 99 percent of all populated ZIP codes in the United States have access to high-quality, affordable child care. Programs and services provided are training and technical assistance to local and state child care resource and referral programs, Quality Assurance Program, a national, voluntary certification system for CCR&Rs, and Child Care Aware®, a national toll-free information line and website for families.
• National Association for Family Child Care - NAFCC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting quality child care by strengthening the profession of family child care. NAFCC Accreditation is a recognized indicator that a family child care program is a quality environment.
• National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center - NCCIC, a service of the Child Care Bureau, is a national clearinghouse and technical assistance (TA) center that provides comprehensive child care information resources and TA services to Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Administrators and other key stakeholders.