The North Carolina Child Care Corps: The role of national service in childcare

The purpose of the present study is to document the impact of training and ensuing experience on the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of AmeriCorps n ational service volunteers in child care classrooms. The North Carolina Chi ld Care Corps (NCCCC) combined federal (AmeriCorps) and state (Smart Start) dollars in the state of North Carolina to improve existing teacher-child r atios by providing trained teachers for child care centers. Participants (C orps members) in the project received four weeks of intensive training in c hild development and early childhood education and were then assigned to ch ild care classrooms in counties receiving Smart Start funding in five regio ns of the state. Corps members did not replace existing staff, but were add ed as assistant teachers above and beyond the mandated teacher-child ratios . Results from Year One of the project indicate that the NCCCC was successf ul in training Corps members in the areas of child development and early ch ildhood appropriate practices. However, Corps members showed a decline in t he appropriateness of their interactions with children after nine months of service in child care classrooms. Implications concerning the use of Ameri Corps volunteers to improve the quality of child care are discussed.