photos







Quality Care




















 

Certification Overview

What is certification?

Certification is a state-wide credential for child and youth care work practitioners. It is based on a four tiered system developed by the Texas Youth and Child Care Worker Association. It begins at the Entry Level and extends through the Associate, Professional and Advanced Levels..

Certification allows practitioners to demonstrate their development as professionals and participate in true career development. Over time, practitioners can combine in-service training, formal education and work experience to qualify for increasingly advanced positions. Or they can continue to work in the same setting with the ability to meet a wider range of youth needs.

Certification allows practitioners to take their place as co-equals working with other professionals serving children and youth.

Certified practitioners are recognized by their colleagues and by the public as credentialed professionals.

Certification in Texas is presently available at the Entry and Associate Levels. Work is underway to implement a national certification that will allow reciprocity between states.

What does certification mean?

Certification means that a practitioner has gained recognition as a professional who has:

  • Documented the required experience;
  • Demonstrated the professional knowledge and skills required to work in their chosen field;
    • and
  • Demonstrated to colleagues and the community the knowledge and skills required to effectively and successfully work with children and youth.

Why certify?

The advent of certification marks the beginning of a viable career path for child and youth care work practitioners. As certification becomes more widely accepted and quality education programs immerge:

Children and youth have:

  • Access to well prepared practitioners who have the broad-based knowledge and skills necessary to provide quality care.

Practitioners have:

  • Increased career flexibility and options because their credential will be nationally recognized by employers across the entire field.
  • Expanded opportunities to combine experience, in-service training and formal education to qualify for advanced positions.
  • Increased recognition from the community and other professionals as providers of quality services to children and youth.
  • Access to scholarships and loans that make higher education accessible.

Administrators have:

  • A larger pool of qualified, experienced workers available to fill positions.
  • A more reliable way to differentiate between qualified and unqualified applicants.
  • Increased program credibility and safety, which will lead to lower program liability and reduced insurance costs.
  • Support in developing quality in-service education programs.

Who are practitioners?

Child and youth care work practitioners are employed in a variety of settings. These settings include: early childhood education, residential treatment, group care, community youth services, foster homes, juvenile corrections and programs for developmentally and physically disabled youth.

Child and youth care work practitioners are known by many names, including: foster parents, youth workers, recreation leaders, teaching parents, child care workers, group leaders, house parents, detention workers, probation officers, teacher's aids, shelter workers, child life specialists, mental health workers, psychiatric technicians, community youth workers, school crisis counselors, street outreach workers, and others.

All of these practitioners:

  • Are entrusted with the on-the-spot, hour-to-hour, care, education, treatment or development of children and youth.
  • Share ethical values and use a common body of knowledge and skills.
  • Provide nurturing, management and guidance to healthy or ar-risk children and youth..
  • Work in a variety of child serving organizations.

National Certification

National Certification is currently under development. The North American Certification Project (NACP) is providing leadership to implement a unified credentialing system for North America. The work is supported by:

  • Albert E. Trieschman Center;
  • Association for Child and Youth Care Practice;
  • Child Welfare League of America;
  • Council of Canadian Child and Youth Care Associations;
  • International Coalition for Professional Child and Youth Care Work;
  • National Resource Center for Youth Services;
  • Texas Youth and Child Care Worker Association; and
  • Child and Youth Care Worker Certification Institute of Texas.

The national credentialing system will be composed of three (3) levels: entry, full professional, and advanced practice levels. The current focus of the NACP is the full professional level (the third level of the Texas system). Pilot testing of this level will begin in 2003. Following review and revision, the full professional credential will be implemented

Work will begin to define the entry and advanced practice requirement after the full professional level has been implemented. The Certification Institute of Texas is involved in the NACP effort. It is expected that practitioners credentialed in Texas will be eligible for reciprocity in other states when reciprocity requirements are outlined.

Unified system

The Certification Institute is coordinating the development of a unified education and training system in Texas. The system is being designed to interface with and expand existing education programs (i.e., early childhood education, juvenile justice,) to better meet the needs of child and youth care work practitioners. Over the next five years degree programs will be expanded and established. Each of these programs will be based on the core competencies identified by the Certification Institute as critical to professional practice. The goal is to develop the full range of educational programs beginning with pre-service training and extending through advanced practice.

In 2001 TYCCWA sponsored the development of the Academy for Competent Youth Work. This group will be establishing regional networks where employers and practitioners can access in-service training programs. Ultimately, this network with be linked to local community colleges. Through this cooperative venture, high quality competency-based training can be made available locally to support the development of professional practitioners. This is expected to have a significant impact on the availability of qualified workers to staff the many programs serving children and youth throughout Texas

Scholarship Programs

The Certification Institute is seeking funding from a variety of public and private sources to help offset the costs of professional development. Many practitioners and employers do not have adequate funding to participate in quality training and education programs. Certification Institute planners believe that proper training is critical to success. The Institute acts as a clearinghouse for funding and scholarship money to increase community access to education and training.

  child care youth work child and youth care practice CYC practitioners quality child care professional child and youth work child care research training education Texas child care quality programs credentialing The CYC Certification Institute promotes improvements in the quality of child and youth care practice by certifying individual child/youth care work practitioners, accrediting training and education programs for Texas CYC practitioners, and researching professional practices of child/youth care workers.