Outline of Texas Texas State Profile

 

The Healthy Child Care Texas (HCCT) initiative will provide an additional platform in which to implement goals and activities in the four component areas of the Texas Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Plan, known as Raising Texas. Raising Texas is a collaborative and comprehensive effort to strengthen Texas’ system of services so that all children enter school healthy and ready to learn. For more information please visit the website at http://www.raisingtexas.com/.

  • Licensing: Texas Child Care Licensing Regulations, administered by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, do not include any requirements or recommendations for child care health consultation.
  • Funding: Title V Maternal and Child Health funds one Full Time Equivalent (FTE) position for work on Healthy Child Care Texas and to assist with the Raising Texas initiative. Limited funding is available for some statewide travel and marketing materials depending on availability. Some communities have local grant funding to provide CCHCs to programs within their community while most CCHCs either incorporate CCHC into their regular job responsibilities or offer their services to programs for a fee.
  • Auspices: The lead agency for HCCT is the Texas Health and Human Services Commission(HHSC) Office of Program Coordination for Children and Youth(OPCCY), which works in collaboration with the Texas Department of state Health Services (DSHS) Maternal and Child Health Division. DSHS provides the Title V funds for the early childhood coordinator – HCCT position.
  • CCHC Role: CCHCs provide technical assistance, training and consultation to both home-based and center based programs. Texas CCHCs have knowledge and experience in early childhood education, child health and development, knowledge regarding children with special needs and are familiar with Texas child care standards in out-of-home child care settings. Specific activities may include:  staff training, presenting parent and child health education programs, on-site assessment of health and safety practices of child care staff, assistance in development of policies, procedures, record keeping and advocacy to promote quality child care in the community. The CCHCs in Texas do NOT provide hands on medical or nursing care, or education consultation to individual children or groups of children.
  • CCHC Training: Texas currently has 7 active NTI trainers with 1 CCHC attending the NTI training in September 2008. All CCHCs are required to attend a 4 day training adapted from the NTI curriculum. To be certified as a CCHC, participants must have a minimum of a bachelor’s degree in child development, ECE, Health education/promotion or nursing. Future revision of training is looking at possibly 2 days of face to face with distance learning modules for the remainder of the required training. HCCT also offers an online course for medical consultant certification of pediatricians, residents, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
  • Marketing: The HCCT website (www.healthychildcaretexas.org) includes information for parents, ECE providers, CCHCs, NTI trainers and medical consultants. HCCT also has brochures and PowerPoint slides used to market the program at conferences and around the state to various groups. A Community Infrastructure Toolkit has been designed for use by communities to identify persons in their community who qualify to be CCHCs and provides resources and ideas to build an infrastructure of CCHCs in local communities. FY2009 Marketing Plan includes new brochures, exhibit materials for conferences and presentations to affiliated groups to promote HCCT and encourage more participation from the health community.  

History and Development

Healthy Child Care Texas originated in Fort Worth with the Tarrant County Health Department and Camp Fire USA, First Texas Council. The Maternal and Child Health Bureau funded HCCT from 1996 to January 2005.  During this timeframe, the initiative has been managed sequentially by: the Tarrant County Health Department, the Texas Workforce Commission, the Texas Department of Health (now Department of State Health Services) and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.  It is currently housed at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC).  HHSC collaborates with the Department of State Health Services in the development of materials with as up-to-date medical information as possible.

The goals for HCCT are to

  • maximize the health, safety, well-being, and developmental potential of all children so that each child experiences quality child care within a nurturing environment and
  • help increase children’s access to preventive health services, including a medical home.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

  • Funding: Current funding only covers one FTE position and some travel around the state. Due to the location of the HCCT program within a state agency, private funding is often difficult due to the fact that HCCT is not housed within a non-profit community. Adding to the difficulty of obtaining funding is the inability to collect data from a group who are not required to submit data, thus hampering the ability to show positive outcomes for the program.
  • Data Submission by CCHCs: Due to the voluntary nature of HCCT, it is often difficult to get CCHCs to submit data through the online system.
  • Creating a statewide infrastructure: The challenge for Texas is to create a permanent infrastructure of NTI trainers and CCHCs.  There are over ten thousand licensed child care facilities, and over ten thousand registered family homes in Texas.  HHSC is exploring opportunities to provide a more sustainable infrastructure and to increase the number of NTI trainers and CCHSs in order to have a greater impact on the quality of child care in Texas. 

Ingredients for Success

  • Dedicated core of Task Force members: Throughout the changes and challenges with HCCT, a dedicated group of Task Force members has remained constant and dedicated to furthering the mission of HCCT. These members are made up of other state agencies staff, statewide non profits, CCHCs and NTI trainers, thus providing continuity for the Healthy Child Care Texas Initiative.

Moving Forward

Healthy Child Care Texas will be looking to revise initial CCHC training in 2009 to provide a more cost-effective format combining face-to face and distance learning with the hope that this format will be more attractive to those in the Health community. Additionally, HCCT will be looking to implement recertification requirements to ensure current and future CCHCs pursue professional development opportunities relevant to Healthy Child Care.

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Information as of October 2008