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Community Resources for Families
National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (NCSBS)
The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome is committed to preventing shaken baby syndrome and promoting the well-being of infants generally through the development and implementation of programs, policy, and research; and to supporting and educating families, caregivers and professionals.
National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome
1433 N 1075 W, Suite 110
Farmington, Utah 84025
office: (801) 447-9360
fax: (801) 447-9364
Cost - FREE
Breast Feeding
Continuing to breastfeed while working can sometimes be challenging for new mothers returning to work. Below, you will find resources to ensure you are being the most supportive and knowledgeable champion for breastfeeding mothers in your center.
The following guide from GO NAP SACC* for a more in-depth self-assessment of best practices for breastfeeding and infant feeding to see where your program’s strengths are and identify areas that may need improvement.
* Ward D, Morris E, McWilliams C, Vaughn A, Erinosho T, Mazzuca S, Hanson P, Ammerman A, Neelon S, Sommers J, Ball S. (2014). Go NAP SACC: Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care, 2nd Edition. Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Department of Nutrition, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Nutrition Resources
Below you will find resources to ensure that children have healthy meals and snacks.
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Grow It, Try It, Like It - Nutrition Education Kit
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GO NAP SACC - A Nutrition And Physical Activity Self-Assessment for child care programs to review their practices in the areas of breastfeeding and infant feeding, child nutrition, outdoor play and learning, physical activity, and screen time.
Family-Style Dining
Family-style dining promotes and supports social, emotional, gross, and fine motor skill development. Children learn about appropriate portions, healthy eating habits, sharing, and cooperation.
GUIDE
The Family Style Dining Guide was developed by The Ohio Child Care Resource & Referral Association (OCCRRA) and Nemours National Office of Policy and Prevention to help develop an understanding of and strengthen current practices in the family-style dining approach. It also helps address obstacles to employing a successful family-style dining plan and introduces new strategies and concepts in role-modeling and adult/ child mealtime interaction.
VIDEOS
Using durable, child-sized, and age-appropriate serving and tableware fosters confidence in children when they learn to serve themselves and make healthy food decisions. These videos from Environments.com illustrate how using smaller, lightweight serving and tableware can make it easier for children to serve themselves while interacting with their peers and caregivers/ teachers.
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Guiding Principles - Family Style Dining Part 1
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Tips for Success - Family Style Dining Part 2
FEEDING PICKY EATERS
Positive Reinforcement
Helping children who are reluctant to try new foods can be a challenge. Give children the opportunity to try new foods by offering a variety of foods with different colors, shapes, and textures. Encourage conversation and model healthy eating during snacks and mealtimes.
TWO-BITE CLUB
Created by Team Nutrition/USDA, The Two-Bite Club is a FREE children’s book that was developed to help encourage children to try new foods by sampling at least two bites and aligning food choices with recommendations from ChooseMyPlate.gov. Colorful cheery cats explore new foods and discover they like more than they expected. This FREE resource includes coloring pages, a certificate for the “Two Bite Club” and tips for growing healthy eaters.
OTHER RESOURCES
Create an environment where children feel confident and comfortable trying new foods. This handout from ChooseMyPlate.gov emphasizes using positive phrases to encourage reluctant eaters while showing examples of phrases best not to use.
Use this guide from the National Center on Health and Wellness to help you evaluate your program’s basic mealtime practices on fruits and vegetables, beverages, menu selection, and providers’ role during meal/ snack times.
After you’ve completed the assessment, use this Action Plan template to help make changes in your program.
FOOD ALLERGIES
Management of Allergies
Food allergies pose a real threat to the safety of children. Ensuring your staff is well-trained in your policies and procedures can contribute to better management of allergies and minimize or prevent allergic reactions in children.
The following tools provide valuable information on common food allergies, how to avoid cross contamination of food, how to recognize the symptoms of an allergic reaction, and what to do in an emergency.
VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides practical information, planning steps, and strategies for reducing allergic reactions and responding to life-threatening reactions for ECE program administrators and staff.
FOOD ALLERGY FACT SHEETS
The Institute of Child Nutrition provides food allergy fact sheets to help you manage food allergies and common questions regarding food allergies in child nutrition programs.
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For Child Care Homes
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For Child Care Centers
NFSMI FACT SHEETS
This series of fact sheets from the National Food Service Management Institute (NFSMI) provides an overview of food allergies, the top 8 food allergies, how to manage food allergies, and common questions regarding food allergies in child nutrition programs.
SAMPLE EMERGENCY CARE PLAN
FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education) provides this sample emergency care plan, which can be filled out by the child’s parent/ guardian and primary care physician.
CARE PLAN & POLICY
Have all the details at your fingertips with this essential form and policy guidance from Caring for Our Children: National Health & Safety Performance Standards. The "Care Plan For Children with Special Health Needs" outlines specific medical information and accommodations, special staff training needs, supports and equipment requirements, as well as nutrition and feeding needs.
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Care for Children with Food Allergies - Policy from Nutrition and Food Service
In the course of your care of a child, it may become evident that a child has a health concern for which you do not have a Care Plan or Emergency Care Plan. If that is the case, you may need to obtain this information to be assured that you are appropriately caring for the child and to put in place any special accommodations that may be required. Ask the family to sign a Consent for Release Information Form along with the Information Exchange on Children with Health Concerns Form to request more information from the child's health care provider. These resources are made available through the Virtual Lab School and reflect work adapted from the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the California Childcare Health Program.
FOOD SAFETY
Serve it safely
Putting food safety practices in place is the best protection from foodborne illness. Any surfaces that food comes into contact with must be routinely cleaned and sanitized. Food temperatures should be carefully maintained, as temperature determines how quickly foodborne pathogens grow.
Ensuring that cold foods are kept at or below 40° F and that hot foods are cooked to and maintained at about 140° F will decrease the growth of bacteria. All fruits and vegetables must be washed prior to preparation. Make sure all food preparation surfaces are cleaned and disinfected, and that containers and utensils are clean and sanitized.
SAFE FOOD HANDLING
You can prevent foodborne illnesses by following these four steps:
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Clean – wash hands and surfaces often
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Separate – keep raw meat, poultry, fish, and their juices away from other food
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Cook – cook foods to proper internal temperature, according to a thermometer
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Chill – keep food to be served later at a minimum of 40°
EPA REGISTERED SANITIZERS
Food contact surfaces are likely areas for contamination. The use of EPA-registered sanitizing products can effectively kill bacteria in areas of food preparation. Cutting boards, and any items that can, should be cleaned and sanitized using the sanitizing cycle of a dishwashing machine. Caring for Our Children (CFOC) National Health and Safety Performance Standards Appendix J outlines how best to select and use EPA-registered sanitizers to effectively sanitize food surface areas.
NFSMI TRAINING GUIDE
The National Food Service Management Institute (NSFMI) training guide provides up-to-date food safety concepts required to prepare and serve food safely and to keep facilities safe and sanitary. Topics include; food safety, prevention of foodborne illness, basics of microorganisms, how to keep a clean and sanitary facility, process for foodborne illness prevention, and food safety programs in schools.
NFSMI FACT SHEETS
The following NFSMI Food Safety Fact Sheets will help you in implementing food safety protocol, including:
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NFSMI Food Safety Fact Sheets - Complete List
TEMPERATURE CHART
Print out and post this handy food temperature chart from the USDA as a guideline of safe cooking temperatures and important helpline information.
SAFE FOOD STORAGE
Caring for Our Children (CFOC) National Health and Safety Performance Standards, 3rd Edition provides this chart as a guide for how long to store foods in the refrigerator and in the freezer under optimal conditions.
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Food Storage Chart - CFOC Appendix V
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Informing Policy - CFOC
Under less than optimal conditions such as after a power outage due to a storm, it is important to know which foods are still safe and which must be discarded. Download this info sheet from the Virginia Cooperative Extension to use as a guide.
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Recovering from a Storm - Food Safety Info Sheet.
HEALTHY BEVERAGES
Healthy Beverages in the Child Care Setting
It’s important to foster healthy beverage habits early in young children. Offering water throughout the day is a great way to teach the value of choosing water over other sugary choices.
Milk should also be an important part of mealtime to help young bodies grow strong and healthy.
Below are some resources to foster good beverage selections in your child care setting.
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Offering Healthy Beverages in the Childcare Setting - On-Demand Lesson
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Increasing Access to Drinking Water and Other Healthier Beverages - A Guide
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Grow Healthy Kids: Just Add Water - Provider Guide
HEALTHY CELEBRATIONS
Fun and Healthy Celebrations
Children need access to healthy food and physical activity in order to grow, learn and thrive. Parties, birthdays, holidays, events, and other celebrations often include food low in nutrients and high in fat and calories. Let’s use these occasions as an opportunity to teach and promote healthy eating habits.
Make special occasions fun and healthy for the children in your care by using the following resources to plan and implement your Healthy Celebrations Policy.
TIP SHEETS
For ideas on how to shift the celebration’s focus from food to fun, download this tip sheet from Action for Healthy Kids. Available in English and Spanish.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPINET) provides this fact sheet with tips for healthier classroom celebrations, including suggestions for healthy birthdays and holiday-specific activities and snacks:
POLICY
POSTER
As part of its 10 Tips series, MyPlate offers this poster for making healthy food and beverages part of parties and events.
FAMILY HANDOUTS
Use the following handouts to give families options when sending in snacks to share for birthdays, holidays or other celebrations. Note that these suggestions are only a partial list and do not include every item that could be considered a healthy snack.
ACTIVITY IDEAS
Along with providing or asking for healthier alternatives to pizza, cake, and candy, continue the fun by incorporating physical activities into celebrations. Use the Activity Resources for ideas for fun and games that get those little bodies moving!
HEALTHY MENUS
Learning About Food Choices
Helping children learn how to make healthy food choices begins with introducing and serving a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains, lean proteins, and meals that are low in fat, sugar, and sodium.
As a childcare provider, you have a unique opportunity to influence how children experience food by offering a wide array of healthy food, modeling good habits, and talking to children about food as fuel to power their bodies.
HEALTHY MEALS RESOURCES SYSTEM - CHILD NUTRITION RECIPE BOX
The Institute of Child Nutrition Child Nutrition Recipe Box provides a collection of high-quality, downloadable menus and recipes for meals, snacks, and low-sodium herb/seasoning mixtures all checked for nutrition quality, CACFP creditability, and simple preparation. All resources are free and many can be easily adapted to serve larger groups There are even recipes created specifically for family child care providers.
USDA WHAT'S COOKING MIXING BOWL
The USDA "What's Cooking?" USDA Mixing Bowl provides recipes with instructions for feeding 6 individuals and for larger programs, for preparing 25-100 servings. Both sets of recipes include crediting information and vegetable subgroups.
TEAM NUTRITION
Team Nutrition provides recipes that support healthy meals and are specifically for family child care homes.
TWO-BITE CLUB
Created by Team Nutrition/USDA, The Two-Bite Club is a FREE children’s book that was developed to help encourage children to try new foods by sampling at least two bites and aligning food choices with recommendations from ChooseMyPlate.gov. Colorful, cheery cats explore new foods and discover they like more than they expected. This FREE resource includes coloring pages, a certificate for the “Two Bite Club” and tips for growing healthy eaters.
MEALTIME MEMO
The National Food Service Management Institute at the University of Mississippi publishes ‘Mealtime Memo’ a very useful, easy to read resource on topics ranging from “Time Saving Tips for the Child Care Kitchen” and “Conquering Picky Eating with Nutrition Education Activities” to “Creating and Maintaining a Safe Mealtime Environment” and “Feeding Infants” and everything in between. Although geared toward child care providers participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program, much of the memo is relevant to any child care program serving food.
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Sign up here (scroll down the page to find the subscription area)
Infant Meals
The unique nature of infant care demands close collaboration with families. The Infant Feeding Plan is a tool to help you create an individualized plan for the infants in your care.
TABLEWARE & FEEDING UTENSILS
Tableware and Feeding Utensils
Using clean foodservice tableware prevents the spread of microorganisms that can cause disease. Dishes, cups, utensils, highchair trays, bibs, burp cloths, and cloth napkins must be cleaned and sanitized after every use.
Tableware and utensils should be unbreakable, durable, dishwasher-safe, and appropriate in function, size, and shape for use by children. Disposable plates, cups, and utensils should be thrown away after one use. Polystyrene foam plates and cups should not be used by children under four years of age, because pieces could be easily broken off and become a choking hazard.
WASHING DISHES BY HAND
A dishwashing machine is the best way to clean and sanitize dishes. When washing by hand, dishes should be washed and sanitized using the three-compartment dishwashing method as outlined in Caring for our Children Standard 4.9.01.13:
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Method for Washing Dishes by Hand - CFOC Standard 4.9.0.13
DISPOSABLE TABLEWARE
If considering disposable, keep in mind some products may contain chemicals harmful to children. Learn more about using ecologically friendly products here: