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Step Up To Quality Stories

The Many Ways Signing Up for NECPRS Benefits Early Childhood Professionals

The first step of a Step Up to Quality journey includes having directors and staff create profiles in the Nebraska Early Childhood Professional Record System (NECPRS). If your program is already enrolled in Step Up to Quality, you may have completed this task and forgotten about it. If you’re considering joining us, we have great news: NECPRS is an easy-to-use, valuable, professional tool, and signing up in the system only takes a bit longer than reading this blog post.

Benefits of NECPRS

NECPRS was developed by the Nebraska Department of Education as an online record system to support early childhood professionals. In addition to hosting the Step Up to Quality application process, this system allows professionals to upload and store their records in one place, even as they change employers. No more tracking down paper documents — simply sign up once to ensure your professional information is saved and secure throughout your career.

Another important task NECPRS accomplishes is verifying licensing records for early care and learning professionals. The NDE Office of Early Childhood approves all training that is entered into NECPRS, and this training record can be shared with DHHS Licensing. Moving to an electronic reporting system makes it easier for licensing personnel and child care professionals to do their job and results in significant cost and procedural efficiencies for both state government and child care providers.

A more recent update allows users to grant access to their records so employers can view their staff’s completed training or add training certificates on their behalf. If you change jobs, your account will follow, and you can update who has permission to view your information. Need to change your email or password? You don’t have to create a new account for a new job — it’s all editable within the system.

To support early childhood professional development, NECPRS also provides a training calendar. This feature is helpful to both find upcoming trainings and seamlessly track the trainings you’ve completed. If you’re a Step Up to Quality participant, some of these trainings are available at a reduced rate!

Signing up for NECPRS

Anyone working in early childhood can create a NECPRS account. Setting up an account should take no longer than 15 minutes. Since the site is mobile friendly, multiple staff members can create accounts at the same time on their own devices. Each person will add their name, date of birth, education level and employer information. You can also “build your professional record” with previous employment information, full education history, professional credentials and previous trainings, but this information can be uploaded at a later time if necessary.

If you need additional help signing up, here are step-by-step guides in English and Spanish.

Creating a NECPRS account is more than checking a box, it’s a professional tool for you to store and display your credentials, find training opportunities and help our state have a better understanding of the early childhood landscape. Sign up today!