| A | B |
|---|
| Private home-based care | Caring for a child in the home |
| Center-based care | Caring for the child in a center outside of the home |
| Child care center | A place where children have supervised group care and socializing experiences |
| Employer-sponsored | A center located on or near the job site for employee's children |
| Family child care | An arrangement in which an individual uses his/her own home as a place to provide care for other people's children |
| Head Start | A program funded by the federal government and designed to prepare children to start school; provides locally run child care to lower-income and disadvantaged children from birth to five years old |
| Montessori | A group program that encourages young children to learn independently through the use of hilghly specialized materials |
| Nanny | A person trained to provide child care and lives with the family or comes to the home daily |
| Au-pair | A young person from another country who lives with a family and cares for their children, usually receiving room and board plus a small salary |
| Smart Start | North Carolina's nationally recongnized and award-winning early childhood initiative designed to ensure that young children enter school heatlhy and ready to succeed |
| Stay- at- home parent | A parent who works at home taking care of the children |
| University-sponsored/laboratory school | A child care program on a university campus or at a high school where students work and observe as part of their class work |
| Adult-child ratio | Number of adults per number of children |
| Cleanliness of facility | Cleanliness rating by Health Department or visual inspections |
| Cost of child care | Total cost for one or multiple children and additional fees |
| Discipline methods used | Age-appropriate strategies used to modify children's behavior; time-out, rewards, loss of privileges, sets limits, but does not use harsh punishments |
| Equipment and supplies | Items needed to use with the children to run a center or keep a child |
| Hours of operation | Days of the week facility is open and start and stop times |
| Location of facility | Where a child care building is placed in a certain area |
| Personal qualities of caregivers | Characteristics that are valued in someon who cares for children -- caring, patience, gentle demeanor, fairness, consistency and understanding stages of child development |
| Training and education of staff | Staff development and learning programs for workers in a center |
| Transportation provided | Some programs pick up and deliver back home the children who attend their facility |
