The goal of Family-to-Family/Child Care Aware (CCA), formerly Family-to-Family/Child Care Aware, is to improve family child care provider training. Local child care resource and referral agencies (CCR&R’s) partner with local family child care associations to offer high-quality, relevant and practical training and mentoring to new or prospective family child care providers.

During the twenty-hour basic training course, providers learn key information, such as: how to run a small business, techniques for caring for mixed-age groups, developmentally appropriate practices, proper hygiene in caring for infants, meeting state licensing standards, and positive discipline. CCA encourages new providers to stick with the difficult task of starting up a new business and meeting the daily challenges of caring for children in their home. Since trainers and mentors are providers themselves, they can readily identify with and help those who are taking the training.

The Family-to-Family/Child Care Aware Initiative was launched in 1988 by Mervyn’s, a division of Dayton Hudson. In 1990 Target Stores joined and expanded the initiative, and in 1993 the Department Stores Division of Dayton Hudson joined the effort. Over a seven-year period, these companies invested over $10 million to increase the quality of family child care by:

• Offering high-quality family child care provider training;
• Supporting providers in obtaining accreditation;
• Supporting family child care associations and developing leadership in the field; and
• Carrying out a national public awareness campaign about quality child care.

In Washington State, Mervyn’s funded the first Child Care Aware site. Building on its success, the Washington State Child Care Resource & Referral Network (a private, non-profit agency comprised of community-based CCR&R agencies across the state) and the state Department of Early Learning (DEL)  formed a partnership to fund and support replication projects in additional CCR&R’s around the state. Through support from Mervyn’s and DEL, the Network has helped to put in place the systemic elements of standards development, data collection, and two replication manuals — one detailing aspects of program development and management, and the other providing trainers with insights on running successful trainings. Since 1994, DEL’s commitment to expansion has resulted in increasing the funding so that the 20-hour, state guidebook-based Family-to-Family training is now available across the state. In June 1998, the training program was renamed Building Blocks: Laying the Foundation for Quality Family Child Care™.

Family-to-Family has become a model for locally-based, collaborative, quality child care provider training. As Washington implements its State Training and Registry System (S.T.A.R.S.), mandating training for child care workers for the first time, Family-to-Family/Building Blocks is the only community-based training to be pre-approved as meeting the recommended training standards. The Network is also adapting the curriculum for presentation in both online and video formats. With these new formats, the Network is taking steps to ensure that the highly successful mentoring component remains a part of the training experience. Finally, as the state requirements for trainers go into effect, the Network will work to ensure that quality standards and evaluation feedback loops are in place statewide to ensure the best possible training experience for family child care providers.

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