The state plans for Healthy Child Care, Health Communities participants have been reviewed!
In an effort to support states in advocacy around their Child Care and Development Fund plans, Child Care Aware® of America summarized the state plans’ health content for Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, Missouri, New York State, and North Carolina.
CCDF state plans have eight sections that detail how the state intends to implement the CCDF program in accordance with federal statute. This review highlights plan content in the areas of health, safety, nutrition, and physical and social emotional development. Specifically, the review discusses the extent to which states identify:
- Health in CCDF Leadership and Coordination with Relevant Systems
- Health in Family Engagement Through Outreach and Consumer Education
- Health in Supply Building Strategies to Meet Needs of Certain Populations
- Health in Standards and Monitoring Processes to Ensure the Health and Safety of Child Care Settings
- Health in the Recruitment and Retention of a Qualified and Effective Child Care Workforce
- Health in the Support of Continuous Quality Improvement
Each section was established to examine opportunities to enhance standards around healthy, active living, physical and social emotional development, children with disabilities and opportunities to connect to other state programs that support child health. We also identify any waiver requests that a state may have made.
Although each state plan addressed core requirements, their tactics to meet federal requirements were different. An example of this variation is in Health in Standards and Monitoring Processes to Ensure the Health and Safety of Child Care Settings. In some cases, states leaned more towards implementing prevention and control of infectious diseases, infant death, response to emergencies due to food and allergic reaction, and building and physical premises safety - including identification of prevention from hazards that can cause bodily injury.
Others leaned toward training services, storage of hazardous materials and the disposal of such materials. The section on Health in the Support of Continuous Quality Improvement also included various ways discretionary funds would be spent depending on the state needs.
These reviews can serve as brief guides to assess the state child care systems’ level of activity and connectivity in health topics can be used to identify areas for future connection and collaboration.
