Health & Safety
Support Network

Healthy Child Care Programs, Healthy Kids!

Keeping children healthy and safe is an important piece of providing quality care. It also impacts the caregivers and families of the children in care. We are pleased to offer the following resources to help you in providing quality healthy and safe care.

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For Child Care Providers

Whether you are providing care as a family member, friend or neighbor; a licensed or unlicensed provider; through Head Start, a pre-school program or an after-school program, implementing quality health and safety standards will minimize illness and injuries.

Necessary components to quality care.

Resources for Providers

Health Link Online newsletter from Healthy Child Care Pennsylvania

For Consultants

Minnesota Statutes for licensed child care centers, Under Rule 3 (Minnesota Rules, parts 9503.0005 to 9503.0170), has required licensed centers to have a Child Care Health Consultant (CCHC) review all health and safety policies and practices since 1980.

Minnesota’s local county public health agencies originally were the source for CCHCs services.  However, over the years local county agencies have been phasing out this service. As a result, there has been an increase in private fee for service CCHCs providing health consultation services to licensed centers.

This password-accessable site provides a variety of tools and resources for the child care health consultant (CCHC). These reflect the current, research-based standards of support care for quality health and safety practices within child care.

General Resources

American Academy of Pediatrics; Healthy Child Care America Resource Library is a database with a wealth of resources related to early education and child care. Users are able to search by topic, type of resource, AAP materials, and/or materials for families.

Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs, 3rd Edition contains updated guidelines on the development and evaluation of the health and safety of children in all types of early care and education settings. Covers health promotion, nutrition and food service, infectious diseases, program activities for health development, and more. Includes a new section on preventing childhood obesity. 

Healthy Childcare® is a bimonthly publication for childcare programs devoted to health and safety issues. Published six times a year, each issue includes information on health, safety, medicines, staff health, health education activities, illnesses, and more; including reproducible parent information sheets and mini-posters. Healthy Childcare® is edited by the American School Health Association's Council on Early Childhood Health Education and Services.

Healthy Childcare Consultants, Inc. is a resource for child care health consultants; early care and education (ECE) providers and trainers; members of professional organizations, educational and medical facilities; and parents whose goal is to provide accurate information and effective resource materials to promote the health and safety of young children, birth through age 8. 

Minnesota’s Bookstore operates as a centralized publishing house for state agency products sold to the public, including Child Care Center Laws & Rules

U.S. Department of Human Services Early Child Care and Knowledge Center is a general children's health resource site, including sections about children aged 0 to 5 on nutrition, health and wellness, oral health, environmental health and safety and health care and social service professionals.

 

Note: The training below does not meet Minnesota Statute for licensing.

New Online Module for Child Care Providers:  Reducing the Risk of SIDS in Child Care

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Healthy Child Care America is pleased to announce the release of a new online module on Reducing the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in Child Care!  Based off of the AAP Reducing the Risk of SIDS in Child Care Speakers Kit, this FREE course is designed to educate everyone who cares for babies, including child care providers, health care professionals, parents, grandparents, and relatives. 

1 hour in length

The course provides information on how to create a safe sleep environment to reduce the risk of SIDS and other sleep related deaths.  With an easy to use format, this course is available 24/7 from your home or office computer.  Child care providers will receive a certificate of completion for 1.0 contact hour.  Health care professionals can also receive credit (see flyer for details).

For instructions on how to access this FREE course, visit www.healthychildcare.org/pdf/SIDSmoduleflyer.pdf. 
For more information and materials on how to reduce the risk of SIDS, visit www.healthychildcare.org/sids.html. 

The Reducing the Risk of SIDS in Child Care online module is supported by Grant No. U46MC04436 from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Child Care Bureau and the Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, to the AAP.