Topic Areas
The CDC is a comprehensive source of information on public health issues, including immunization, sanitation, and infectious disease. The CDC provides a large library of information to the public on many topics. Some of the categories include: Diseases and Conditions; Emergency Preparedness & Response; Environmental Health; Life Stages & Populations; Healthy Living, Injury, Violence & Safety; Traveler's Health; Workplace Safety & Health. The CDC website includes a powerful search engine as well as alphabetical listings. Users will find fact sheets, videos, photos, posters, and other useful materials to download.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 44% of young children less than 5 years of age have already had tooth de-cay. Tooth decay causes eating, speaking, learn-ing and behavior problems for young children. Yearly, children in the United States miss over 51 million hours of school due to dental pain.
- 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
Early educators and families need to follow oral health recommendations related to use of fluoride for children. Experts no longer recommend that children take fluoride tablets and liquid supplements. Instead, children should brush their teeth twice a day with fluoride-containing toothpaste. The amount of toothpaste should be appropriate for the child's age. Infants use a smear or rice grain amount of toothpaste. Children 2-5 years of age use a pea-sized amount. From then on, a small ribbon is appropriate. By 12 months of age, or 6 months after the first tooth appears, children should visit a pediatric or child-friendly dentist. Thereafter, children should visit a dentist every 6 months. The dentist may apply fluoride varnish to their teeth at periodic visits. Medicaid and some private health insurance will pay for these preventive dental services. The child's pediatrician may be able to temporarily provide these services to healthy children up to age 5 if dental services are not available in the community. Reviewed and reaffirmed 7/2021
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.
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.
The National Center on Health offers visually attractive, simply stated resources for infant, toddler and preschool care. Anyone can down-load the electronic copies from the Internet. Head Start programs can order hard copy from the National Center at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. These materials have excellent content for teachers/caregivers to use in their programs and to share with families:
Growing Healthy Flipcharts http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/health/healthy-active-living/HAL_Resources/NCHEnglishFlipChartF011514_7-7final508.pdf
Take a look at the National Center’s Health Tips (Fact Sheets) for Families* (and teachers): Download an individual one page fact sheets when you need a handout on one of the topics or download the complete series in English [PDF, 1.2MB] and Spanish (español) [PDF, 309KB]* The following topic are available as handouts:
Active Play includes tips to help infants, toddlers and preschoolers develop positive active play behaviors.
Health Literacy provides information about how to understand and use health information that doctors and other health professionals give.
Healthy Breathing provides information about eliminating first-hand, second-hand and third-hand exposure to tobacco smoke.
Healthy Eating offers easy tips to help infants, toddlers and preschool-age children learn healthy eating.
Mental Health provides information about how to help infants, toddlers and preschoolers develop positive mental health behaviors.
Oral Health offers tips to promote oral health in infancy through preschool age.
Safety and Injury Prevention: Tips for Families (2 pages) provides easy tips families can use to ensure their children's health and safety at home, outside, in the water, and in a car or truck.
Dealing with Stress is a 4 page guide with simply stated, clear tips to help cope with stress in a healthy way.
Early education and child care professionals should include preventive practices in the curriculum. In addition, early educators have many opportunities to notice possible areas of decay on children’s teeth. Coupling prevention and early recognition of possible trouble with referral to an oral health professional can save significant suffering. Early decay looks like dull white bands on the smooth surface of the tooth at the gum line. It is caused by bacterial activity in the mouth. It is a form of infectious disease. Early decay may be reversible with fluoride treatment and removal of plaque that builds up on the teeth. If this early decay is not treated, it becomes yellow, brown or black spots. These spots are places where decay destroyed the tooth enamel. If you see chalky white spots or discoloration on a child's teeth, urge the child's family to take the child to a dentist as soon as possible.
This bright, highly graphic poster illustrates steps parents, teachers/caregivers can take to help children have healthy teeth. One side is printed in English and the other side is in Spanish. 5/2018
In 2015, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated the schedule of services children should receive during well-child visits.* The new schedule includes oral health screening and that all children between 6 months and 5 years of age have their teeth painted with fluoride varnish** 2-4 times a year to prevent tooth decay.
Learn more about how to make the most of well child visits. Go to the 8/2015 article* on the AAP’s www.HealthyChildren.org website. This website is for parents and other caregivers. Articles are available in English or Spanish, in both written and oral format.
*https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/health-management/Pages/Well-Child-Care-A-Check-Up-for-Success.aspx
**https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/oral-health/Pages/Fluoride-Varnish-What-Parents-Need-to-Know.aspx
Photo and article content with permission of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Oral health and public health experts have updated the recommendations to prevent cavities (dental caries) for children less than 5 years of age. What’s new is a strong recommendation for the child’s pediatrician or dentist to apply fluoride varnish every 3 to 6 months, starting as soon as possible. Painting the teeth with fluoride varnish is easy. Good research shows that fluoride varnish reduces caries by as much as 59%. Painting fluoride varnish on the teeth protects the outside layer of tooth enamel for “baby teeth.” Baby teeth start forming before birth. Most finish developing during the first year of life. The formed teeth start to come up during the first year, and finish coming up by the time the child is three years old.
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.
Brushing children’s teeth during the day is a great way to promote health. It may also reduce the risk of tooth decay for young children. Bacteria can grow on toothbrushes that have been in someone’s mouth. They grow especially well on wet toothbrushes that are kept in closed, dark places. Follow these steps to make sure toothbrushes stay clean. Wet toothbrush bristles should not be covered. They should air dry.
ECELS offers many live and recorded webinars available to use for PA Key and Act 48 credit. The recordings are on the ECELS website a week or so after the live webinar. “Managing Challenging Behaviors” was the first ECELS webinar for 2016. It was presented live on 1/14/2016.