As part of Head Start’s comprehensive services, every Head Start program provides services to promote health, behavioral health, and safety for children and families. New and experienced health services staff can use these resources to learn more about health services and the role of health services staff. This topic area also includes professional development resources for health services staff, child care health consultants, and others who support health services across all early care and education settings.
Learn how child care health consultants’ (CCHCs) expertise and knowledge can support early care and education programs. Discover ways CCHCs can help ensure healthy and safe learning environments.
Learn how programs can find and connect with child care health consultants (CCHCs). Explore ways CCHCs can help improve program safety as well as provide professional development opportunities for staff.
Review the minimum health and safety standards for child care settings outside of the home. This tool covers eight content areas from Caring for Our Children Basics and can strengthen health and safety practices.
Find out how to develop a Child Care Health Consultant (CCHC) registry. Learn about the registry’s purpose and components. Explore ways states can add a registry to an existing professional development system.
Review the skills and expertise of child care health consultants (CCHCs) who work with early care and education programs across settings to serve children ages birth to 5 and their families.
Explore this tip sheet to learn about how homelessness impacts health and wellness. Learn how to identify and assess the needs of families experiencing homelessness and connect them to medical and dental homes.
Learn about the medical home and why it's important to connect families so their child can receive continuous, accessible medical care.
Programs that serve young children are required to ensure that policies and procedures are in place to protect children and keep them healthy and safe. This screener will help to identify where programs need to make changes and build capacity to meet children's needs. It also contains best practices and requirements found in the Head Start Program Performance Standards.
Read this companion document to the Tool to Support Health Managers and Staff. Program directors, health managers, and health staff can use it to promote successful job performance and support career development.
Explore this tool supporting learning of the Head Start health services competencies.