Child Care Health Newsletter
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The Snohomish Health District has been providing up-to-date health and safety information and consultation to child care providers in Snohomish County for many years. We now have a new look to our newsletters. Each month you will receive articles, available STARS classes, and links to useful resources.
We recently introduced our updated newsletter.
You are receiving this email because you are on our current emailing list. Feel free to forward this to others who may be interested.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. You can also view this email as a webpage by clicking the link at the top.
We hope you like our new look and enjoy our August edition.
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Measles in Snohomish County
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As you may have heard, measles was identified in a visitor to Snohomish County early last month. This individual then spread measles to four of the six members of the family they were visiting. Relevantly, the two immunized people in the household did not contract measles. You can learn more about the measles cases
in this press release (click to open link).
At the time of the initial case, several sites in Monroe were identified as possible areas of exposure for county residents. Measles is highly contagious, and can exist in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves. For this reason, the Snohomish Health District wanted to ensure that individuals with possible exposure were aware of their risk.
What does this mean for child care providers?
The period of incubation has now passed, and our communicable disease team does not have reason to expect there will be more cases related to this small outbreak. However, it is a good time to revisit the benefits of immunization for yourself and the vulnerable children you care for. You can learn more about immunizations and the diseases they prevent during this month’s free, 2 STARS credit distance learning class. “Immunizations: Protecting Child Care Providers and Children.”
When cases like this occur, there is no need to exclude unimmunized children unless you have received direct notice to do so by the health district or by your licensor. It is a good idea to relay information about outbreaks to parents so that they can be as prepared as possible. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to our public health nurse Bonnie Decker at 425-339-5228.
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Reducing Challenging Behaviors
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It is often difficult to decide how best to respond to challenging behaviors. We don’t want to do or say the “wrong” thing that may worsen the situation or cause harm, but we also need to figure out something that will work. In this article, you will find three environmental issues to consider in your efforts to increase desired behaviors. Hopefully, these simple ideas will help you think through additional ways to modify your classroom environment to reduce challenging behaviors.
The first issue to consider is over-stimulation in the environment. Overstimulation may cause sensory overloads resulting in melt downs, shut downs, and inexplicable behavior that doesn’t seem triggered by anything. Any of the senses can be overloaded; hearing, sight, smell, taste, and/or touch. A child may react to a tactile sensation such as the feeling of a particular fabric against the skin or to being touched. Are the lights too bright? Is there an overabundance of purposeless color and clutter? For those of you who provide care to infants, remember that they are more easily overstimulated than toddlers, who are more easily overstimulated than preschoolers, and so on, right up into adulthood. Consideration of these factors is particularly important if you look after children who are diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, or other sensory-related diagnoses.
You might also consider room layouts and traffic patterns in your child care. Do you have long open spaces inside that may indicate a runway to a young child? If inappropriate indoor running is an issue, consider changing up the space. Do you notice a particular area of the room where unwanted behaviors tend to repeatedly occur? Perhaps rearranging the layout or contents of that area would reduce challenging behavior.
Finally, I suggest installing a space where children can go to be alone, such as a calming cube, quiet corner, or “safe space”. Think of this as time-out 2.0. This space isn’t used as a punishment, per se, but a place where a child can go to regroup and learn to return to a calm state. These articles explain how one might be used:
If you make any of the suggested changes in your child care environment, please let me know the outcome. Next month, I will share five classroom practices that can prevent challenging behaviors from occurring. As always, please reach out if I can be of assistance. - Alexandria Deas, MA, LMHCA, MHP
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Is It Safe to Be Outdoors?
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Last summer, smoke from wildfires significantly affected air quality and turned our usual blue skies into a gray haze. Many child care providers were confused about whether it was safe to let children play outside.
Young children are considered a “sensitive” group that are at much higher risk of harm from air pollution than the general population.
This means that even if the air seems fine for you to breathe, children may experience side effects much sooner than you do, especially during physical exercise.
This is because children are not just “small adults” – they have unique physiology that puts them at a higher risk, such as lungs that are still developing, a faster rate of breathing (meaning they have more exposure to air for their size than we do), and closer proximity to the ground where air quality is worse. Poor air quality is associated with poor outcomes in children: it can lead to asthma, poor lung development, and affect their ability to learn.
The next time air quality becomes an issue in Western Washington, there are a few resources you can use to help determine if it is safe to play outside. Air quality changes on a frequent basis and can vary widely even with within our own county. The links to the left have maps that show air quality in your specific area, and different colors to indicate what groups are at risk.
If your location is listed as “Orange: Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” or worse, we strongly recommend keeping your children indoors.
If you have children or staff with asthma or other special health needs, they are at particular risk and may have symptoms when the indicated color is
“Yellow: Moderate.”
We’ve postponed this month’s air quality class, but if you ever have any questions about whether or not it is safe for your group of children to play outside, you can contact our team at
425-252-5415. It’s important for young children to p
lay outside as much as possible, so don’t let concerns about air quality deter you from getting kids out there—just stay informed!
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Picnics – Eating Outdoors with Children
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Eating outdoors is one of the most pleasurable activities to do in the summertime with children. Kids get to combine outside games and play with eating a meal on a table cloth on the grass or at a picnic table. Being outside on a warm day simply feels like summer and is a perfect way to celebrate the bounty of fresh foods that ripen during the summer season, such as watermelon, strawberries, cucumbers, snap peas and cherry tomatoes. It is also an opportunity to offer some of children’s favorite finger foods. Try sandwich quarters, tortilla roll-ups, cold slices of melon and crunchy veggie sticks served in cups.
Food Safety and Picnics:
Eating outdoors can be easy and safe if meals are planned and the timing for picnics is intentional. Children still need to wash hands before eating, so planning the meal before outdoor play time will eliminate the need to come back inside before the picnic to wash hands. Avoid experiences with animals (such as petting farms) before meals. Better to eat first and then pet the animals. Always wash hands afterwards.
When off site for the picnic, choose a location with running water. Bring soap, paper towels, and a garbage bag for clean up if these are not provided on the site. Make sure children and adults wash hands prior to preparing food and eating. If no running water is available, make a temporary hand washing station using a cooler with a spigot and a bucket to catch the waste water. It is easiest to bring snack foods that are not potentially hazardous. Consider bags of trail mix that contain seeds, dried fruit and sesame sticks, containers of cut up fruit and vegetables; sunflower butter sandwiches, crackers and corn chips with salsa. When picnicking on the child care site, store items containing meat, cheese, bean dips, cut melons, dairy, and other
potentially hazardous foods (link) in the fridge before bringing them out to the picnic. If heading to a park or on a field trip, it’s easier to keep cold foods cold so avoid bringing foods that require hot holding. Pack the potentially hazardous foods in a cooler surrounded by ice or ice packs to keep them at to 40° F and keep the cooler in the shade and covered. Be careful not to leave these foods out of the fridge or cooler for more than 2 hours or one hour if the outdoor temperature is more than 90 F...
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click here to continue reading (link opens PDF of complete article
with additional information and picnic food ideas).
For questions and more picnic ideas please contact our nutritionist Katy Levenhagen at (425) 252-5407.
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Preschoolers Learning and Active in PLAY
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We invite you to join an exciting new research study called PLAY (Preschoolers Learning and Active in PLAY) to help kids ages 3 to 5, their teachers, and families be more active and healthy over 6 months. Researchers at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington are testing whether wrist worn activity trackers and STARS trainings can help preschoolers, teachers and parents engage in more active lifestyles. Only centers who participate in CACFP and/or Working Connections (accept DSHS subsidies) are eligible.
If your center is interested, we would start with having children (with their parents’ permission) wear our PLAY accelerometers or “science belts” that show us the children’s level of activity and your center help with our screening process. Your center would get a report about your students’ physical activity. Based on the results, we would decide if your center qualifies to participate in PLAY! The study includes free STARS trainings for preschool staff on physical activity in child care and early learning.
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For more information:
Phone: 206-884-8197
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Immunizations
Protecting Child Care Providers
and Children
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By learning about vaccines, how they work, and the diseases they prevent, child care providers can help educate parents and make sure that everyone has the necessary vaccines to prevent such serious illnesses.
This course gives an overview of why adults and children in child care settings need vaccines. It answers common questions about vaccines and the diseases they prevent, including how they keep people healthy and which ones are recommended.
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Find a full list of our 2018 classes
here.
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Contact Information
Snohomish Health District
3020 Rucker Ave., Ste. 104
Everett, WA 98201
Program Phone: 425.252.5415
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Connect with the
Child Care Health Outreach Program
The Child Care Health Outreach Program staff are available to consult with you on these and other health and safety topics by phone, by email, or at your child care.
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Connect with Snohomish Health District
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