Building on feedback from the field, as well as current research on supporting young children’s development and learning, the authors have revised and updated the widely used Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale. FCCERS-3 is the next-generation assessment tool for use in home-based child care programs for children from infancy through school age (birth to age 12).

FCCERS-3 focuses on the full range of needs of the wide age-range of children often found in family child care programs. Further, the scale assesses both environmental provisions and provider-child interactions that contribute to children’s learning and development, including language, cognitive, social-emotional, and physical development, as well as concerns for health and safety.

FCCERS-3 is appropriate for state- and district-wide QRIS and continuous quality improvement, for provider self-assessment, and as a learning or monitoring tool within networks of family providers. The established reliability and validity of the scale make it particularly useful for research and program evaluation with family child care programs.