Child Care Health Consultants (CCHC) are trained professionals who work with child care programs to improve health and safety in facilities along with providing technical assistance in many areas. All services provided by CCHCs are no cost to programs. Among the offerings from the Chatham County CCHC:

• Developing strategies for inclusion of children with special health care needs
• Providing support in preventing and managing injuries and infectious disease
• Assessment and improvement of outdoor play spaces
• Providing up-to-date information on regulations and best practices
• Assistance with creating a produce garden

CCHCs have been shown to improve star ratings and sanitation scores, and are dedicated to making the child care experience as safe and healthy as possible for children.

Health and Safety Coaching/Technical Assistance

This assessment can help increase your Star Rating license score and sanitation score or be a teacher development tool. We can customize it to meet your needs. This assessment is done through a one to three-hour-long teacher or family home provider observation.

The focus of this assessment can be on illness and infectious disease prevention, supporting children with special healthcare needs, medication administration, safety and injury prevention, emergency preparedness response and recovery, infant and child social-emotional wellbeing, child abuse and neglect, physical activity, nutrition, oral health, environmental health, staff health and wellness, and policy development and implementation.

Programs/classrooms that do the initial assessment will receive the Mindful Kids Activity Card Set and if you do a follow-up observation you will be able to choose a larger classroom activity set.

County-Wide Trainings

At least once a month the CCHC offers a county-wide training. Topics include Its-SIDS, Emergency Preparedness and Response, Medication Administration, Moodle Courses (Precautions in Transporting Children, Handling and Storage of Hazardous Materials, Prevention of Shaken Baby Syndrome, Building and Physical Premises Safety, Prevention and Control of Infectious Disease, Prevention and Response to Food Allergic Reactions).

Please go to http://chathamkids.org/trainings/ to see all upcoming trainings. We also offer Playground Safety on a request basis.