Resources

If you are interested in child care and early childhood education, you've come to the right place!Ensuring that children grow and thrive is an essential part of a child care provider's job. Feeding infants appropriately, serving well-balanced meals and snacks, preparing and serving foods safely, providing regular opportunities for children to be physically active, and teaching healthy habits are all important ways that child care providers can support healthy eating and physical activity, and reduce the risk of childhood obesity in our youngest children.

• Care About Child Care helps parents find quality child care in Utah. It also gives child care providers an opportunity to showcase the qualities of their facilities. Find valuable resources about child development, school readiness, and nutrition too!
• Caring for Our Children National Health and Safety Performance Standards Guidelines for Early Care and Education - includes best practices for nutrition and physical activity for Child care settings.
• The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) reimburses child care facilities for serving nutritious meals and snacks to infants and children who are in need. Visit CACFP’s website to find out if your child care facility is eligible to participate.
• Healthier CACFP Award The Healthier CACFP Award is a recognition system that supports the wellness efforts of child care centers participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Child care centers taking steps to improve the nutrition, physical activity, nutrition education, and/or environment for children in their care can apply to win an award in one or more of these categories. Three award levels are offered: Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors.
• CACFP Wellness Resources for Child Care Providers helps providers meet the reommendations from the Heaalthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA). The HHFKA of 2010 encourages child care providers to promote health and wellness in child care through nutrition, physical activity and limited electronic media use.
• Nutrition & Wellness Tips for Young Children: Provider Handbook for CACFP will provide tip sheets focused on nutrition, physical activity, and screen time recommendations and include hands-on activities.
• Breasfeeding support videos created by the Breastfeeding Coalition of Oregon in partnership with the Indiana Perinatal Network:
  • How to Support Breastfeeding Mothers & Families: A Simple Guide for Child Care Providers
  • Seeking Support for Breastfeeding at Work and Child Care: A Parent Guide
• eXtension Alliance provides objective and research-based information and learning opportunities that help people improve their lives. eXtension is committed to supporting quality child care nationwide. Visit eXtension Alliance to find resources and information about quality child care.
• KidsHealth If you're looking for information you can trust about kids and teens that's free of "doctor speak," you've come to the right place.KidsHealth is the most-visited site on the Web for information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.
• Team Nutrition Menu Cycles 5 weeks of recipes and resources, to assist child care providers in serving healthy meals that are cost effective, easy to prepare, and appealing to children.
• Fruits and Vegetable Lessons for Preschool Children were developed for use as a hands-on, stand-alone curriculum for anyone wanting to encourage preschool children to develop healthy eating and physical activity habits.
• I am Moving, I am Learning A proactive approach for addressing childhood obesity in Head Start children. IMIL seeks to increase daily moderate to vigorous physical activity, improve the quality of movement activities intentionally planned and facilitated by adults, and promote healthy food choices every day.