From left, Ami Lobsinger, 6, and Jaynee Dauz, 6, work on Easter eggs as Elize Embile sorts the decorations. As an in-home day-care provider at Negishi military housing area near Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, Embile offers an alternative to base child development centers. (Jim Schulz / S&S)
From left, Ami Lobsinger, 6, and Jaynee Dauz, 6, work on Easter eggs as Elize Embile sorts the decorations. As an in-home day-care provider at Negishi military housing area near Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, Embile offers an alternative to base child development centers. (Jim Schulz / S&S)
Elize Embile provides day care for seven children in addition to raising two sons of her own. (Jim Schulz / S&S)
Eliza Embile is setting the example for other in-home child-care providers at Yokosuka Naval Base. Embile is the first Child Development Home provider at Yokosuka to receive accreditation through the National Association for Family Child Care.
Accreditation is required for military child-care facilities but is voluntary for providers certified by the Defense Department to care for children in their government quarters. Embile paid $25 for membership in NAFCC, while the Navy picked up the $500 application fee and gave her a one-time award of $495.
In-home providers in all four services already must undergo extensive training and a system of checks and balances to remain certified. Providers are screened prior to certification and trained in the same manner as child-development staff, according to DOD officials. Family child-care homes also are monitored for compliance with DOD standards, receiving the same unannounced inspections as centers do.
Accreditation takes the process a step further, ensuring quality in six areas, from the home environment to the nature of activities offered in the provider’s home, officials said. To qualify for accreditation, Embile, for example, had to create a dramatic play area in her home, where kids can dress up in costumes or imitate adults in a play kitchen area with pretend food.
She also added a memory wall of photographs taken of the children on various field trips around base. “I want to provide the type of child care I would want for my own children,” Embile said.
Embile, whose husband is Chief Petty Officer Rammil Embile, cares for five children after school. On a regular drop-in basis during the day, before the school-agers arrive, she cares for two children, ages 4 years and 11 months. She also looks after her two sons, 8 and 5.
“I’m really very comfortable with her,” said parent Virginia Abes, whose 9-year-old stays with Embile after school. Embile also watched Abes’ 11-year-old son before he started attending an after-school program on base. “I know that my kids are safe,” their mother said. “I know that she’ll take care of them to the best of her ability.”
LeTonya Taylor, whose husband Petty Officer 2nd Class Dhani Taylor, an operations specialist on the USS John McCain, said it took her three months to become certified as in-home provider at Negishi, a military housing area in Yokohama that serves Yokosuka Naval Base personnel. “The need is there,” she said, “for more providers.”
Taylor cares for her toddler daughter and another toddler and infant. A typical day involves playing outside if it’s not too cold, breakfast, lunch, two snacks, dancing, coloring and lots of singing, Taylor said.
“Now that they’re (toddlers) starting to talk, we do our ABCs and our numbers.”
Taylor decided to be in-home provider because she wanted to stay home with her daughter but wanted her child also to have a playmate. “In Negishi, there’s only me,” she said.
Candace Watson, Yokosuka’s CDH director, said she hopes accreditation will give parents who choose home care further peace of mind, and perhaps even persuade some who are wary of in-home care to try it. “Accreditation should help them see that homes are going through a quality process just like centers do,” she said.
