New York State uses two complementary approaches to support health and safety in early care and education (ECE) settings. In Approach A, health care consultants oversee the health care plans of ECE providers that administer medications to children. This approach preceded Healthy Child Care America (HCCA). In Approach B, the New York State Department of Health (NYDOH) oversees a statewide network of Child Health Promotion Specialists (CHPSs). Below, we provide information about both approaches.

• Licensing: In Approach A, the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) requires that ECE centers that enroll infants and toddlers, serve mildly or moderately ill children, or opt to administer medication to the children in their care use health care consultants to oversee their health care plans and visit their programs at least once every two years. Family–based day care programs and registered school–age programs that opt to administer medications to the children in their care must also have a health care consultant of record. The health care consultant is an employee of the child care center, family child care home, or a state contracted child care resource and referral agency (CCR&R) health care consultant. Licensing regulations do not require providers to access CHPS consultation services (Approach B).
• Auspices/Funding: In Approach A, OCFS partially offsets the cost to providers in accessing health care consulting services through funding distributed across the statewide CCR&R network. In providing financial assistance for health care consultant services, OCFS gives priority to family–based providers and legally exempt providers. For the CHPSs (Approach B), Title V and ECCS grant funding have supported training, communication, and evaluation activities. CHPSs are employees of local health departments and they typically carry out their activities as part of the ongoing provision of public health services. ECE providers generally do not pay for CHPSs’ services.
• CCHC Role: In Approach A, the state requires providers to use health consultants on a fee–for–service basis to approve policies such as medication administration. A health care consultant must be a physician, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, or registered nurse who possesses a valid New York State license in his or her field, or a health care professional who is an employee of a local DOH office. In Approach B, CHPSs provide outreach, education, consultation, and technical assistance (TA) on public health matters to all child–serving organizations that work with children in groups or that bring families together. These include family child care providers, family resource centers, parenting groups, health care providers, and others. Public health nurses and public health educators serve as CHPSs. They work to create opportunities for health promotion and disease prevention by serving as liaisons between families and providers, and the health care community, county health departments, and other resources.
• CCHC Training: In Approach A, all OCFS–approved health care consultants are trained medical professionals who are licensed by New York State. Overseeing health care plans is within the scope of practice for these professionals, therefore, OCFS training was not needed. OCFS did offer a training to boost the understanding of the family–based day care programs and support them in developing health care plans to meet their needs. OCFS also, in collaboration with the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany Training Strategies Group, developed a mandatory one–day, competency–based training for all providers administering medication called the Medical Administration Training Program (MAT). In Approach B, CHPSs received an intensive, six–day training offered by the NYDOH in collaboration with the School of Public Health, SUNY at Albany. This training was based on the National Training Institute for Child Care Health Consultants (NTI) model and has been supplemented by subsequent daylong, annual updates on emerging public health issues and by continuous TA based on ongoing needs assessments. As of 2005, 125 completed the CHPS training.
• Website: OCFS provides information about Approach A on its website.

Top

Information as of August 2006

HCCC-NSC is a part of EDC’s Center for Children & Familites.
Site hosted by Education Development Center, Inc. ©2006 Education Development Center, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This website was developed with funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under contract number HHSH240200535013C.