Early Education and Child Care in Action

E-News for Health Professionals

An electronic newsletter for members of the AAP Section on Early Education and
Child Care and their child care partners

Click here to view past and current issues of E-News

Issue #5, December 2006

1. Message from the Chairperson Elaine Donoghue, MD, FAAP

2. Resources

• Is This the Right Place for My Child?
• Child Care Health Consultants Resource List

3. Upcoming Events

• Building State Systems to Promote Early Childhood Development
• NACCRRA
• AMCHP
• PAS
• The Future of Pediatrics

4. Funding Opportunity

• AAP Funding
• CATCH Implementation Funds

1. Message from the Chairperson Elaine Donoghue, MD, FAAP:

Please Welcome the New Members Who Joined the Section in November 2006:
Nicole Tien Chao MD, FAAP
Steven Christopher Crook MD, FAAP
Fernando J. Indacochea MD, FAAP

This brings our current Section membership to 242!

A Year in Review:

2006 proved to be a very successful year for the Provisional Section on Early Education and Child Care (PSOEECC). Over the past year, several milestones were achieved and important work completed. Below is an overview of important activities that the Section membership has accomplished in 2006.

• The AAP Board of Directors approved the application from the AAP Early Education and Child Care Special Interest Group that the group become a Provisional Section! Within this Section, 5 work groups evolved (Advocacy, Training and Education, Communications, Membership and Outreach, and Research which incorporated activities from the former AAP Center for Child Health Research, Health, Early Education and Child Care Consortium). The Executive Committee held its first official meeting at the 2006 NCE. Click here to view a summary of the Executive Committee meeting.

• The membership for the PSOEECC grew from 203 members to 242 members!

• Three issues of the AAP Health and Safety E-News for Child Care Providers went out to more than 2,000 caregivers and are available online. These issues have focused on Reducing the Risk of SIDS, Connecting Families to Community Resources, Preventing Infectious Diseases, Deciding Whether Mildly Ill Children Can Attend Child Care and Promoting Social/Emotional Development and School Readiness. Click here to view the past issues.

• The Reducing the Risk of SIDS in Child Care Evaluation Project completed phase one of the project. The state teams (LA, MT, CA and LA) have completed a day-long training in their respective states, recruited child care centers and homes to participate in the study, conducted initial observations and trainings, and are in the process of conducting the second round of observations. Data collection and analysis will continue over the next several months. Once all of the data has been summarized and lessons learned are collected, an article will be produced.

• The Reducing the Risk of SIDS Brochures were revised to reflect the October 2005 AAP Policy Statement on Safe Sleep. More than 1,200 pediatricians, parents, child care providers, public health departments, and hospitals received 150,000 of each of these brochures through a mailing. These brochures were also disseminated at various conferences, meetings, trainings and are available online for free downloading and printing. Click here to view the brochures.

• In an effort to learn more about what section members are doing in the field of early education and child care, an online section membership survey was created. 149 members completed this survey. The answers provided by the section members will be instrumental in guiding the future activities of the section. Click here to view the preliminary results.

• The Section awarded 17 Scholarships to section members to complete the Early Education and Child Care Pedialink Module.

• The Healthy Child Care America Back to Sleep Campaign was highlighted in the July issue of Pediatrics. Click here to view the article.

• The PSOEECC worked in conjunction with the Section on International Child Health and 17 National Organizations to begin organizing an International Conference on Child Care Health and Safety. This conference will likely occur in 2009. Click here to view the documents and information regarding this conference planning.

CONGRATULATIONS ON A SUCCESSFUL 2006 AND WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO 2007!

Elaine Donoghue, MD, FAAP

Pedialink Scholarships

Comments from a Scholarship Recipient:

I learned a lot from the course and have already presented a talk on "How to Partner With Your Pediatrician" to a group of child care health consultants. I am also interested in helping with an article on this topic. This module took approximately 4 hours to complete.

Theresa Flynn, MD, FAAP

2. Resources:

Is This the Right Place for My Child?
The National Association for Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies produced a user-friendly booklet for parents that contains a checklist of 38 questions that they can ask to evaluate the quality of child care programs. Unlike most guidelines for selecting child care, this booklet explains why each question is important and how it relates to the quality of care, based on research about what is important to children's health, safety, and development. Click here for information on purchasing this booklet.

Child Care Health Consultants Resource List
Here is a resource list that every Child Care Consultant needs! The American Academy of Pediatrics worked with the Healthy Child Care Consultant Network Support Center to create this document that compiles a list of essential books, manuals, articles, policies, and web sites for today's CCHC. Click here to view the webpage.

3. Upcoming Events:

Building State Systems to Promote Early Childhood Development
January 18-19, 2007, Washington, DC
The Child Care Bureau, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the Office of Head Start are collaborating to plan a conference to help key state partners to develop early childhood comprehensive systems. A small team from each state will attend this meeting - do you know who is attending from your state? Contact your statewide Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) coordinator to find out. The grantee contact list and other information can be found here.

National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies Annual Policy Symposium
February 27- March 3, 2007, Washington, DC
We are pleased to announce that the Reducing the Risk of SIDS in Child Care Evaluation Project abstract has been accepted! Details to follow.

Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs
March 3-7, 2007, Arlington Virginia

Pediatrics Academic Society Annual Meeting
May 5-8, 2007, Toronto, Canada

The Future of Pediatrics: Community Pediatrics, Medical Home and Beyond
June 29 - July 1, 2007, Orlando, Florida
This is a great opportunity for medical home advocates, community pediatricians and other community health providers to network and learn from each other as well as from respected clinical and practice management faculty. Click here for additional information.

• Abstracts are due January 19, 2007 Click here for additional information.
  

4. Funding Opportunity:

A variety of funding opportunities are available at the AAP website. Click here to view the opportunites.


Just a reminder that applications for Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) Implementation Funds are due January 31, 2007. This is a wonderful opportunity to seek funds to support your early education and child care efforts! For more information, click here:

Did you know that the AAP has a Health and Safety E-News for caregivers and teachers?

• See the current issue here.
• Sign up to receive these quarterly newsletters here.