Health, Safety, and Nutrition

Health, Safety, and Nutrition aims to provide early educators with the skills to promote the health and well-being of children in their care. This course helps early educators develop an awareness of the effect of children's surroundings on their health and well-being (such as the air breathed, surfaces touched, and food eaten).

Early educators must be knowledgeable about health, safety, and nutrition to provide quality care for children. A safe and nurturing environment is critical for children's physical, intellectual, social, and emotional development.

This course is also available as a condensed online self-paced course offering 8 hours of approved professional development credit from the Arkansas Professional Development Registry (PDR). To register for a self-paced course, visit the Online Courses page and select the ENROLL NOW! SELF-PACED COURSE button.

Health, Safety, and Nutrition helps early educators:

  • Recognize their function as a role model, protector, and teacher of safety for children
  • Collaborate with parents to improve the health and safety of children
  • Prevent accidents and injuries in the child care setting
  • Understand basic first aid steps that are specific to the child care setting
  • Identify common infectious childhood diseases
  • Discover how germs spread, the appropriate measures to reduce their spread, and the risk of infectious diseases

Health, Safety, and Nutrition includes the following lessons:

  1.   Promoting Children's Health  1 hour
  2.   Preventing Disease  2 hours
  3.   Managing Illness  2 hours
  4.   Child Maltreatment  1 hour
  5.   Preventing Injuries  3 hours
  6.   Nutrition  3 hours
  7.   Food Safety  1 hour
  8.   The Health of the Early Educator  2 hours

Health, Safety, and Nutrition offers the following to all participants:

  • Up to 15 hours of professional development credit from the Arkansas Professional Development Registry and the Arkansas Department of Education
  • Available for anyone to enroll in FREE OF CHARGE
  • FREE course materials and access to in-depth content, including a participant manual and other resources, such as the Minimum Licensing Requirements (MLR) for Child Care Centers, MLR for Licensed Child Care Family Homes, MLR for Registered Child Care Family Homes, MLR for Out-of-School Time Facilities
  • Up to 1.5 Continuing Education Units, upon request
  • Certificate of Completion and Verification of Training Hours, upon request
  • Opportunity to collaborate and build community engagement with other industry experts

Visit the Arkansas Professional Development Registry to find available courses or call (800) 632-8754.

 Course RESOURCES

The Arkansas Department of Education approves all courses provided by Early Care and Education Projects for professional development credit. However, the awarding of professional development credit based on attendance at this workshop is solely at the discretion of the local school district. Learn more by reviewing the Arkansas Department of Education Rules Governing Professional Development (Feb 2016).