Outline of Oklahoma Oklahoma State Profile

 

All five of Oklahoma’s Early Childhood Comprehensive System (ECCS) components address the goals of Healthy Child Care Oklahoma (HCCO). This is particularly true of the efforts to provide ongoing child care health consultant (CCHC) training and technical assistance to early childhood education (ECE) programs and to continue to improve the state’s child care licensing requirements.

  • Licensing: Oklahoma does not have requirements for CCHC consultation in ECE facilities. There is a requirement for medical consultation in sick care facilities. Currently, there are no sick care facilities in the state.
  • Funding: There are two full–time CCHCs at the state level. The toll–free Warmline for Oklahoma Child Care providers, which offers free telephone consultation and refers providers to local CCHCs, is funded through a collaboration of the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH), Child Guidance Program, and the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Oklahoma Child Care Services.
  • Auspices: The OSDH is the lead agency for CCHCs.
  • CCHC Role: Most CCHCs in Oklahoma are public health nurses, but there are no requirements that they be. CCHCs fulfill the role as outlined in the NTI curriculum and provide services as a part of their jobs in county health departments or child care resource and referral agencies (CCR&Rs). However, child care health consultation generally is not defined in their job descriptions and depends on approval of their supervisors, such as administrators in county health departments.
  • CCHC Training: Oklahoma’s Maternal and Child Health (MCH) program offers CCHC training twice a year, providing half of the National Training Institute for Child Care Health Consultants (NTI) curriculum topics in the first session and the other half in the second. The state–level program invites counties to send staff to be trained, but not all counties do. Training participants have included child development specialists, immunization field consultants, and child psychologists. MCH also invites individuals from other agencies to participate in the training, including Head Start, CCR&Rs, Smart Start community leaders, local health providers, etc. Updated resources and training are provided for current CCHCs.

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Information as of August 2007