Topic Areas
PEMA has planning guidelines specific to child care found by clicking here, and then putting "child care" in the PEMA website search box. This site has the Child Care Emergency Planning Guide, a set of supporting forms and checklists as well as a fill-in-the-blank basic emergency plan. Other good information is available at www.readypa.org. Reviewed and reaffirmed 7/8/21.
- Influenza Vaccine for 2015-2016
- Screen Time, Child Development and Nutrition
- Organic Food – Is It Healthier?
- Background Music and Noise Interferes with Language Learning?
- Oral Health Screening Added to Routine Well-Child Visit Schedule
- National Center on Health—Materials All Early Educators Can Use
- Increasing Physical Activity in Afterschool Programs
- Three Newly Revised and a List of All ECELS Self-Learning Modules
- Eating Together - Mealtime Matters
The Emergency Management Institute of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) offers a 2 hour online course called Multihazard Planning for Child Care that FEMA posted on March 13, 2012. Successful completion earns 0.2 CEUs. Click here to access the course. Many helpful emergency planning tools, suggested activities and games to teach children about emergency preparedness are at www.ready.gov/kids/ 4/2013
This training meets the annual DHS Fire Safety Training requirement by covering fire safety and prevention in a child care facility. Participants will learn about fires, planning for a fire emergency, preventing fires by removing hazards and keeping the building safe, smoke/fire and carbon monoxide alarms, fire extinguishers, recording and reporting requirements, and facility resources. The information provided is primarily based on the Pennsylvania Code and Caring for our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards.
To complete this module, view the entire PowerPoint handout below and submit the required Post Test by Survey Monkey (preferred method), or you may either scan and attach the Post Test to an e-mail, by fax, or by surface mail to ECELS. E-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or fax to 484-446-3255.
For those in Child Care Centers (3270) completion of this module, along with on-site training from a fire safety professional, can be used annually to meet the PA DHS state regulatory requirement for fire safety training. Only ECE Centers need to complete the Fire Safety Participant Roster for Early Childhood Centers (3270):
Fire Safety Participant Roster for Early Childhood Centers (3270)
For additional program director resources please see our Fire Safety Checklist for the following facilities:
Fire Safety Checklist in Child Care Centers (3270)
Fire Safety Checklist in Group Child Care Homes in a Commercial Space (3280)
Fire Safety Checklist in Group Child Care Homes in a Residence (3280)
Fire Safety Checklist in Family Child Care Home (3290)
Professional Standard Areas
Health and Safety (3 Hours)
- 7a: Understand the importance of physical health and safety in creating environments that support young children’s learning and development.
- Identify policies and procedures that ensure all children’s maximum healthy participation within the classroom
- Identify and follow relevant laws and regulations related to child supervision practices to protect children and minimize risk
- Describe and apply the procedures for reporting Identified health and safety risks in the environment
- Arrange indoor and outdoor classroom environments that are physically safe and meet regulatory/safety requirements
- Identify key components of an effective emergency preparedness plan
- Explain policies and procedures that ensure all children’s maximum healthy participation within the classroom
Competencies:
- Explain why rapid evacuation is essential in a fire.
- Develop a fire evacuation plan for your program.
- Identify the roles of staff members during a fire emergency.
- Describe the initial steps to be taken if a fire occurs.
- Plan and execute effective fire drills.
- Explain the proper use and maintenance of smoke alarms for your ECE program.
- Describe how carbon monoxide (CO) detectors can decrease the likelihood of exposure to dangerous levels of CO.
- Explain ways to decrease the risk of CO exposure in your ECE program.
- Describe the selection, use and maintenance of portable fire extinguishers as required for your ECE program.
- Identify hazards in your ECE program which could increase the likelihood of a fire.
- Describe actions that you can take to decrease the risk of a fire.
- Identify fire safety documentation requirements.
- Identify resources available to assist in fire prevention planning and fire safety promotion for your facility.
Reviewed and Reaffirmed 08/2023
FARE is an organization that offers helpful decoding of food labels and strategies for preventing serious reactions for individuals allergic to specific types of foods. Publications include training kits, handouts, lists of hidden ingredients in many foods.
This workshop uses the interactive curriculum from the Food Allergy Network. It includes a video and mock epinephrine (EpiPen) demonstration. Participants practice reading food labels to find hidden ingredients that are the same as common food allergens and learn the basics of food allergy and allergen types in foods. The group discusses how to modify the child care setting for a child with a food allergy, and a plan for handling a food allergy response.
This workshop enables the user to learn how to assess health and safety practices in programs for infants and toddlers in conjunction with use of the ITERS assessment tool. Discuss feeding, diapering, sleeping, fostering early brain development, managing illness and more. Use the assessment to make improvements in the program.
This workshop draws on the curriculum published by the American Academy of Pediatrics to teach how to manage the risks involved in giving medication in group care settings using the 5 Rights: the right child receives the right medication in the right dose, by the right method at the right time. Participants practice skills and discuss scenarios to identify gaps in practice. Key elements that should be in documentation of medication, policies and procedures are reviewed. Demonstrations and discussions include tips for giving a variety of different types of medication: liquids and pills, eye, ear, nose, topical medications such as diaper cream and sunscreen, inhalers and emergency medicines.
Many children's medicines come in liquid form. Household spoons may be handy for giving children liquid medicines, but using them is not a good way to give the correct dose. Parents and educators should use a syringe, special medicine cup, special dosing spoon or dropper. These devices are marked in milliliters (mL).
Different household teaspoons hold different amounts of liquids. Tablespoons vary in size too. A spoon that gives too little medicine may keep the medicine from working. If a spoon gives too much medicine, the overdose may cause a serious problem. For example, repeatedly giving a child too much acetaminophen (Tylenol)can lead to liver failure. More than 70,000 children go to emergency rooms each year for accidental medicine overdoses. Use of the wrong measuring device causes some of these. Many liquid medicines come with a special dose measuring device calibrated to accurately measure the particular medication. Be sure to use it. If there is no device with the medication, a pharmacist can provide one. If a syringe is used, squirt the medication slowly and gently between the child's tongue and the side of the mouth. This makes it easier for the child to swallow the medicine.
The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents, physicians and pharmacists to use only metric measurements for oral liquid medications. Metric measurements for liquids in milliliters (ml) or cubic centimeters (cc) should be on prescriptions, medication labels, and dosing devices. This helps children get the correct dose of medication. Do not measure liquid medication in teaspoons or tablespoons.
Please share this information with teachers/caregivers and families. Download and display the new poster in English and in Spanish. Copy and distribute the updated article - also available in both English and Spanish. To access the article in in Spanish, click on "en Espanol" on the page. On the same page, you can listen to the article read to you in English or Spanish.
Families and early childhood educators need to understand how much medicine to give. They should know how often and how long to give it. If they are uncertain about the instructions, they should not give the medication until they have asked the child's health care provider about how to do it. Use the forms in the Medication Administration Packet, Appendix X in Model Child Care Health Policies, 5th edition. This publication is available at www.ecels-healthychildcarepa.org.
Health professionals recommend keeping medicine out of children's reach. Use child safety caps, understanding that these are not "child-proof". They make it harder for the child to open the medicine, giving adults more time to stop the child from getting the medicine. Check labels carefully before giving two medicines together because they may have the same ingredient. Do not mix medicine with food unless the instructions on the medicine say to do so. Also, urge families to bring a list of all medicines the child is taking each time the child sees a health professional.
For medicine mistakes, call the Poison Help number at 800-222-1222. If the child is unconscious, not breathing or having seizures, call 911 first. Be careful when getting rid of unused medicines. In some places, you can drop off medicines at a police department. Make sure to remove labels with personal details. Another way to safely dispose of medicines is to mix them with coffee grounds or kitty litter in a plastic bag you can seal. Throw this sealed bag away in a trash container where children and animals can't get to it. Don't dump the medicine in the toilet or drain, unless the medicine label says it is safe to do it. If you aren't sure how to dispose of a medicine, ask a pharmacist about what to do.
Contributed by Nancy Alleman, ECELS Lead Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator, in collaboration with Ian M. Paul, M.D., M.Sc., FAAP, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Drugs.
The PA Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatrics published the 5th edition of Model Child Care Health Policies in October 2013. Significantly revised and updated, the new edition is a practical tool for adoption and implementation of best practices for health and safety in group care settings for young children. This edition replaces the previously published version and updates of individual policies that were posted on the ECELS website. ECELS encourages early education and child care professionals to adapt the model policies as site-specific documents that fit their programs. Two formats are available: one replicates the hard copy publication. The other format, posted 12-12-2014, has form fields that allow users to insert their site-specific details directly into the PDF document.
Managing peanut allergy is challenging for child care providers and families who use child care. Peanut butter and products that contain peanuts are among the easiest and most tasty lunch and snack foods. Peanut allergy only occurs in 1-4% of the population. However, reactions to peanuts can be severe.
In 2013, a Princeton researcher, Miranda Waggoner studied the emergence of what some have called an “epidemic” of peanut allergy. She found that the publicity about peanut allergy has overstated the risk significantly.
This one page fact sheet gives general information about managing poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac in young children for parents and caregivers. Reviewed and reaffirmed 4-2019.
See Managing Chronic Health Needs in Child Care and Schools, 2nd Edition available from the bookstore of the American Academy of Pediatrics at https://shop.aap.org or search www.healthychildren.org for more information. In PA, please send your health and safety request with your name and phone number to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Early educators have a vital role in the lives of children. What teachers/caregivers do can directly impact each child’s health and wellbeing. Teachers need the knowledge, skills and tools to meet this awesome responsibility! ECELS recently revised three self-learning modules so they are now updated and easy-to-use in online or print formats:
Each module meets STAR Level 2 Performance Standards for Health and Safety and provides 2 hours of professional development credit. See the brief overview of each module below, click on the active link above or go to the ECELS website at www.ecels-healthychildcarepa.org Select the Professional Development/Training tab at the top of the page, then Self-Learning Modules. Find the one you want to use in the alphabetical listing of the more than 30 Self-Learning Modules that ECELS offers.
