Healthy Environments

1 Staying Healthy: Healthy Environments Following your program’s health-related policies will help keep you and the children in your care healthy and safe. Being proactive is your best course of action when it comes to health and safety. This lesson focuses on how you can clean, sanitize, and disinfect to prevent the spread of disease. 2 Staying Healthy: Proper Hygiene The most important part of your job is to keep children safe and healthy. Hand hygiene is a simple way to prevent the spread of disease. You can encourage and model healthy habits like handwashing for young children. This lesson focuses on proper handwashing techniques for adults, very young, young and older infants, and toddlers. It also addresses healthy habits and general hygiene practices for responding to children with colds, cuts and scrapes, and children who are bleeding. 3 Staying Healthy: Diapering and Toileting As a teacher of infants and toddlers, a large portion of your day is spent diapering and assisting with toileting. As a result, there are many opportunities for germs that pose severe health risks to spread in your program. Similar to handwashing, when diapering and toileting are done correctly, the spread of germs and illness decreases, resulting in better health for all. 4 Staying Healthy: Daily Health Checks Children’s health can change quickly. Daily health checks are important tools to help you identify sick or injured infants and toddlers. This lesson will help you understand the importance of daily health checks and how to conduct them. It will also help you recognize symptoms of common childhood illnesses. After completing this lesson, you should understand and follow your program’s exclusion and readmission policy. 5 Staying Healthy: Nutrition, Feeding, and Physical Activity Good nutrition, proper feeding, and physical activity are important aspects of children's good health. Proper exercise and diet can prevent obesity and some chronic illnesses. You play an important role in encouraging and modeling healthy habits for infants and toddlers. This lesson helps you understand portion control, meal components, food safety, and ways to promote lifelong physical fitness. In addition, you will learn safe and healthy bottle-feeding practices for infants. 6 Staying Healthy: Mental Health Needs Children and families often deal with stressful situations that put their mental health at risk. Deployment is a reality for many military families. It affects the well-being and mental health of children and families. This lesson helps you support children and families dealing with stressful life events. 7 Staying Healthy: Special Health Needs It is important for you to be aware of each child’s individual health needs. Some children will enter your care with chronic conditions, such as asthma. Others may have allergies. This lesson helps you understand how to communicate about and care for children with special health needs.