With the support of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Child Care Aware^® of America (CCAoA) is pleased to offer technical assistance (TA) to states on projects that support development or maintenance of quality child care settings that promote child health.

Child care prepares our littlest for the future, by helping them learn and grow. A lot of time and energy is spent making sure that children are healthy right now, today in child care—we create safe environments, we do health checks, and our licensing and monitoring visits are designed to make sure that there are no public health and safety threats.
But what if we looked at health the way we look at learning--not just as things we do to keep children and their families healthy today, but as the building blocks for long, healthy lives? What if the meals we serve weren't just about giving kids something to eat to fill their tummies now, but were seen as giving children experiences with food, which in turn develops preferences for food that fuel their bodies and protects them from chronic diseases, like diabetes?

Helping children get off to a good, healthy start in life is one of the hallmarks of quality child care. It makes sense that quality child care programs would have policies in place that support good infant feeding practices, including breastfeeding.

Establishing healthy habits in early childhood is critical to the early care and education setting.  The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is an important part of shaping the meals and snacks that child care providers serve for children and staff of all ages.  New documents and training resources have recently been released by the USDA to help participants with the transition to implementing new meal patterns by October 1, 2017.  In addition to these resources, the USDA released updated payment rates and a new labeling verification tool to help providers plan for meals and credit food more accurately, to make it easier for children to receive proper nutrition at every meal and snack time.

Many parents use August to prepare for the school year and cross many tasks off their list—school supplies, nailing down schedules, new clothes, and converting the family mindset from summer vacation to the school routine.

But, there is one more task. And you should add it to the top of your list, because it affects school readiness:

Health care for your children!

Spotlight

JeAnne Faris, Trinity Lutheran Child Care Center, Kalispell, Montana