Healthy Child Care Georgia

Healthy Child Care Georgia is a collaborative effort of health professionals, child care providers, regulatory agencies, other organizations and families working in partnership to improve the health and well-being of children from birth-12 years of age in child care settings.

Goals

• Collaboration between health and child care communities to promote sharing and linking of information, ideas, resources, and activities.
• Safe, healthy child care environments for all children, including those with special needs.
• Quality child care training and accurate health and safety information available for child care providers.

Objectives

• Educating all Georgia child care providers about using the health and safety standards and resources within:
• Caring for Our Children: The National Health and Safety Performance Standards-Guidelines for Out-of-Home Child Care Programs
• Stepping Stones to Using Caring for Our Children
• Providing health and safety training for the child care community through a statewide network of consultants and other resources.
• Collaborating with the Georgia Covering Kids Initiative to expand both the enrollment of uninsured children in Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids and the connections to providers for regular medical care.

What we do

Healthy Child Care Georgia's State Advisory Committee members and staff have worked together to accomplish:

• Child Care Health Consultant training of public health nurses and others who provide training and technical assistance for child care providers.
• Sponsorship of Playground Safety Inspection training of child care licensing inspectors from Office of Regulatory Services and Office of School Readiness, and personnel from SafeKids of Georgia, Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies and others.
• Training of child care providers on using and accessing resources within "Caring for Our Children: The National Health and Safety Performance Standards-Guidelines for Out-of-Home Child Care Programs".
• Publication of the "Georgia Child Care Provider Resource Manual" (will be available online after revision); "Growing Smart & Healthy Babies" (Spanish: "Criando Ninos Inteligentes Y Saludables"), and an updated infectious disease chart.
• Incorporating articles with information about child health and safety and inclusion of children with special needs into several existing newsletters reaching child care providers and parents throughout the state.
• Sharing information with child care providers on best practices in child health and safety, funding sources for quality improvements, and accessing health insurance for children.