|
TSA Member Benefits
As a CACFP sponsor, you face difficult challenges. TSA offers you cutting-edge ideas, current information, high-quality resources and management tools!
For more information on our benefits, select from the following:
Sponsor Bulletin Boards
Think of this as your online water cooler. A place to congregate with other sponsors around the country to share stories, ask for suggestions on things such as policy implementation and best practices, receive support, and discuss topics of concern and interest to you. The nice thing about this bulletin board is that it’s just for CACFP member sponsors and you can visit when it’s convenient for you.
SponsorLink
SponsorLink is an electronic mailing list, allowing TSA members to exchange ideas and discuss issues online. A place where our membership from different parts of the country can connect. To get involved, TSA members can simply subscribe. Your email address is added to the list, and you will receive discussion contributions or requests from other list members.
Members may reply to these messages or send new thought-provoking topics or questions at any time. Any message that is sent to the list will be distributed to every other member of the list. You don’t have to actively participate by sending messages; you can just listen to the discussions, or “lurk”, as it is sometimes called.
Provider Training
As a sponsor you may not have the time or financial resources to develop child nutrition training for the providers and/or centers you serve. TSA is poised and excited to accept the challenge of providing you with this resource. Our Training Modules include everything from facilitator scripts to power point and overhead transparencies and camera ready handouts. These modules may be used with providers or centers.
Resource Center
TSA's online Resource Center offers you an opportunity to share and receive resource materials on many topics affecting your sponsorship including: nutrition education, workshop training, home visits, and more! This enables you to utilize the ideas of other sponsors and share your expertise as well. There are more tools and resources in our Members Only area. Just one more reason to Join TSA.
Quarterly Newsletter and Short Notes
Available to members only, TSA's quarterly newsletter, the Connection, and Short Notes (brief issues that supplement the newsletter on an as-needed basis) help you provide quality service to providers, and are useful tools for managing CACFP sponsorships. They often include management best practices; a reproducible provider handout; policies and forms that sponsors have had success with; and timely information that alerts you to proposed program changes that could affect your sponsorship.
Provider Calendar and Recordkeeping System
TSA produces the Provider Calendar and Recordkeeping System as another way to help family child care sponsors support their providers’ business endeavors, and promote good nutrition through the CACFP. As a non-profit organization dedicated to providing sponsors with great deals on conferences, membership dues, products and services, TSA offers this popular provider calendar and record keeping system at an incredible price with special discounts to members.
National CACFP Annual Conference
TSA members enjoy special registration rates to our annual conference. TSA's conference meets ongoing educational needs of large and small sponsors. Workshops and general sessions focus on important issues for directors, office personnel, nutrition staff and field staff. The conference offers new information and personal interactive support for sponsors. Conference scholarships are available to TSA members.
National CACFP Week
The third full week of March is annually designated as National CACFP Week. During this week we encourage everyone involved with the CACFP to focus attention on this very important program and the positive things it accomplishes in the lives of children and their families.
For many years TSA has led a nationwide effort to recognize and promote public awareness about the importance of the CACFP to our nation’s children in child care settings by developing materials and making them available to sponsors and State Agencies at a very reasonable price. TSA members enjoy discounts on the materials developed for use during this important national event.
Advocacy and Legislation
The Sponsors Association (TSA) continually monitors the progress of legislation being considered by the U.S. Congress that affects child nutrition programs, and particularly the Child & Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). We work closely with USDA officials in Washington, Regional USDA offices and State Agencies and the Food Research and Action Committee (FRAC) to keep you informed about any changes (legislative or regulatory) that might affect your sponsorship.
Through ongoing communication with our membership, we receive feedback regarding your questions and concerns with regards to proposed changes and we organize and communicate those issues to the appropriate sources. Your membership makes our voice stronger, our association more effective, and helps member sponsors better administer the programs they operate.
For more about TSA or membership information feel free to email us.
|
