Nursing in Wonderland: A Child Care Health Consultant Collaboration

Approximately 13 billion American children participate in early childhood education programs daily. With childcare professional training deficits and few health and safety regulations, there is a need for health assessment, promotion, and education in childcare settings that will promote the health of children, their parents and the child care professionals. A childcare health care consultant is one who has the interest, experience and knowledge of resources and regulations affecting early learning communities. The health consultant role clearly matches public health nursing roles in meeting community needs.

Through an arrangement with a public health nursing center, a public health nurse with experience in childcare was invited to provide childcare health consultancy services for a regional childcare quality rating and improvement agency. In this role, the nurse provides on-site consultation with twenty participating early learning centers towards the goal of showing improvement of their health related quality markers. In addition, the nurse is available to all regional early learning centers for telephone or on-line consultation. The public health nurse is integral in the community by providing health promotion and education with childcare specialists and stakeholders. This position is the only publicly funded position in Pennsylvania and success will support expansion of childcare health consultants in the state.

This presentation will review the collaboration between nursing center and childcare quality rating and improvement agency and their stakeholders. A year in review will demonstrate the role, strategies used, goals met, and lessons learned.