Learn how to identify the people and agencies who can assist in strengthening Head Start health services, and learn about the importance of creating partnerships with local health care providers and agencies to meet the needs of children and families.
Learn about the importance of using community, program, and child health data to deliver health services. Health data can help programs make improvements and develop approaches to ensure every family receives the health care they need.
In this module, explore how to create an environment that enhances staff physical and mental health. Learn how ensuring staff wellness can reduce stress or depression, unhealthy weight, and infectious diseases.
To manage health services effectively, leaders should understand how health influences school readiness and how their own beliefs may affect their interactions with others in their Head Start program. This module will prepare those who manage health services to reflect on their own understanding of health and wellness, and to consider how to use requirements and regulations to identify important health practices to implement and model for others.
Understanding the general principles of health and wellness promotion, prevention, early identification, and intervention will help leaders and staff implement effective health services. Explore this module to learn more about how health services can contribute to healthier children, families, and staff.
Health education requires knowing what information is important, providing information in a way that others can understand, and ensuring the information is culturally and linguistically responsive. Explore this module to learn how to provide children, staff, and families with health education that will empower them to make good health choices.
Families and other staff members look to health services staff for health information they can trust. Use this module to learn how to find and use current, accurate, and consistent health information to support the health and safety of children and develop evidence-informed program policies and procedures.
Use this guide to orient Head Start health managers to their role and to strengthen the provision of health and behavioral health services across your program.
These tools, for new and experienced staff, address science-informed practices for early childhood health staff. Each is indicative of an attitude, knowledge, or skill. Use this for professional development.
Explore how leaders can better manage health services when they understand how health impacts school readiness. Reflect on leaders’ own role in health services and find ways to promote program health practices.
Use this brief to review the Head Start regulations and education requirements for health services managers and professionals (e.g., mental health consultants and staff or consultants who support nutrition services).
Read this companion document to the Tool to Support Health Managers and Staff. Program directors, health managers, and health staff can use it to promote successful job performance and support career development.
Understanding the general principles of health and wellness promotion, prevention, early identification, and intervention will help leaders and staff implement effective health services. Explore this module to learn more about how health services can contribute to healthier children, families, and staff. Learn the difference between promotion, prevention, early identification, and intervention. Understand how different types of Head Start health services support mental, physical, family, and social wellness.
NHSA’s Health Services Essentials course is designed to support health managers and staff in developing the fundamental knowledge they need to meet the expectations of the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) and support children and families on their path to a healthy future. The course covers requirements in physical and oral health, mental health, nutrition, disabilities, safety, and staff wellness.Learners will walk away with concrete suggestions on how to ensure the HSPPS are met through well-child checks, vision and hearing screenings, dental exams, and more. They will also develop an understanding on how to support others in their role and to train teachers in supporting child safety and development through daily health checks, acute care, and classroom safety checks.
If you are a health manager, you will hear a lot of myths about health and safety practices. (Have you ever heard someone say the best way to get rid of lice is to put mayonnaise on your head?) Demystify your role by going straight to the source: the CDC is the nation’s leading science-based, data-driven service organization that protects the public’s health. For more than 70 years, they have put science into action to help children stay healthy so they can grow and learn.
Health Policy Template Wizard: An easy-to-use tool that allows you to create a childcare center health policy. Available in English and Spanish. Take a look here.
Healthychildren.org: Health and safety tips from the American Academy of Pediatrics. View here.
Caring for Our Children: Searchable standards of best practices for health and safety. View here.
National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety
The National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center is a partner in the National Center on Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety (NCHBHS), supported by the Office of Head Start, the Office of Child Care, and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.
National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
Welcome to Open Wide: Oral Health Training for Health Professionals and Early Childhood Professionals—Second Edition, a series of four modules designed to help professionals working in programs (e.g., Head Start, home visiting, WIC) promote oral health in the course of promoting general health for children from birth to age 6 and their families.This curriculum offers early childhood professionals information to help them prevent tooth decay, which still afflicts many children, especially children from families with low incomes, children from certain racial and ethnic groups, and children with special health care needs. The modules present professionals with information about tooth decay, risk factors, and prevention; explain how to perform an oral health risk assessment and screening; and highlight anticipatory guidance to share with parents.
Centers for American Indian & Alaska Native Health
The Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health (CAIANH) was established in 1986 and is the largest, most comprehensive, and longest standing program of its kind in the country. Our mission is to promote the health and well-being of American Indians and Alaska Natives, of all ages, by pursuing research, training, continuing education, technical assistance, and information dissemination within a biopsychosocial framework that recognizes the unique cultural contexts of this special population. CAIANH houses numerous projects funded by a wide range of private, state, and federal agencies, and partners with human service organizations in more than 200 urban, rural, and reservation communities.
Free Resources: Conscious Discipline fully understands the existing financial barriers to access the help you need; that’s why one of our founding principles is the idea of paying it forward. While we offer hundreds of purchasable products from live events to eCourses to classroom tools, we also offer hundreds of free resources such as webinars, printables, correlations, and self-assessments. Listed below are a few of our favorites geared toward Mental Health Professionals like you.
Early care and education (ECE) providers can improve children’s development and act as a protective factor for lifelong health. To do this important work, ECE providers need support and resources. CDC provides resources for ECE providers, including free trainings, and works with partners to understand how to help ECE providers support children and families.
