1.3.2.7: Qualifications and Responsibilities for Health Advocates

Each facility should designate at least one administrator or staff person as the health advocate to be responsible for policies and day-to-day issues related to health, development, and safety of individual children, children as a group, staff, and parents/guardians. In large centers it may be important to designate health advocates at both the center and classroom level. The health advocate should be the primary contact for parents/guardians when they have health concerns, including health-related parent/guardian/staff observations, health-related information, and the provision of resources. The health advocate ensures that health and safety is addressed, even when this person does not directly perform all necessary health and safety tasks.

The health advocate should also identify children who have no regular source of health care, health insurance, or positive screening tests with no referral documented in the child’s health record. The health advocate should assist the child’s parent/guardian in locating a Medical Home by referring them to a primary care provider who offers routine child health services.

For centers, the health advocate should be licensed/certified/credentialed as a director or lead teacher or should be a health professional, health educator, or social worker who works at the facility on a regular basis (at least weekly).

The health advocate should have documented training in the following:

1. Control of infectious diseases, including Standard Precautions, hand hygiene, cough and sneeze etiquette, and reporting requirements;
2. Childhood immunization requirements, record-keeping, and at least quarterly review and follow-up for children who need to have updated immunizations;
3. Child health assessment form review and follow-up of children who need further medical assessment or updating of their information;
4. How to plan for, recognize, and handle an emergency;
5. Poison awareness and poison safety;
6. Recognition of safety, hazards, and injury prevention interventions;
7. Safe sleep practices and the reduction of the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS);
8. How to help parents/guardians, caregivers/teachers, and children cope with death, severe injury, and natural or man-made catastrophes;
9. Recognition of child abuse, neglect/child maltreatment, shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma (for facilities caring for infants), and knowledge of when to report and to whom suspected abuse/neglect;
10. Facilitate collaboration with families, primary care providers, and other health service providers to create a health, developmental, or behavioral care plan;
11. Implementing care plans;
12. Recognition and handling of acute health related situations such as seizures, respiratory distress, allergic reactions, as well as other conditions as dictated by the special health care needs of children;
13. Medication administration;
14. Recognizing and understanding the needs of children with serious behavior and mental health problems;
15. Maintaining confidentiality;
16. Healthy nutritional choices;
17. The promotion of developmentally appropriate types and amounts of physical activity;
18. How to work collaboratively with parents/guardians and family members;
19. How to effectively seek, consult, utilize, and collaborate with child care health consultants, and in partnership with a child care health consultant, how to obtain information and support from other education, mental health, nutrition, physical activity, oral health, and social service consultants and resources;
20. Knowledge of community resources to refer children and families who need health services including access to State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP), importance of a primary care provider and medical home, and provision of immunizations and Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT).

RATIONALE

The effectiveness of an intentionally designated health advocate in improving the quality of performance in a facility has been demonstrated in all types of early childhood settings (1). A designated caregiver/teacher with health training is effective in developing an ongoing relationship with the parents/guardians and a personal interest in the child (2,3). Caregivers/teachers who are better trained are more able to prevent, recognize, and correct health and safety problems. An internal advocate for issues related to health and safety can help integrate these concerns with other factors involved in formulating facility plans.

Children may be current with required immunizations when they enroll, but they sometimes miss scheduled immunizations thereafter. Because the risk of vaccine-preventable disease increases in group settings, assuring appropriate immunizations is an essential responsibility in child care. Caregivers/teachers should contact their child care health consultant or the health department if they have a question regarding immunization updates/schedules. They can also provide information to share with parents/guardians about the importance of vaccines.

Child health records are intended to provide information that indicates that the child has received preventive health services to stay well, and to identify conditions that might interfere with learning or require special care. Review of the information on these records should be performed by someone who can use the information to plan for the care of the child, and recognize when updating of the information by the child’s primary care provider is needed. Children must be healthy to be ready to learn. Those who need accommodation for health problems or are susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases will suffer if the staff of the child care program is unable to use information provided in child health records to ensure that the child’s needs are met (5,6).

COMMENTS

The director should assign the health advocate role to a staff member who seems to have an interest, aptitude, and training in this area. This person need not perform all the health and safety tasks in the facility but should serve as the person who raises health and safety concerns. This staff person has designated responsibility for seeing that plans are implemented to ensure a safe and healthful facility (1).

A health advocate is a regular member of the staff of a center or large or small family child care home, and is not the same as the child care health consultant recommended in Child Care Health Consultants, Standard 1.6.0.1. The health advocate works with a child care health consultant on health and safety issues that arise in daily interactions (4). For small family child care homes, the health advocate will usually be the caregiver/teacher. If the health advocate is not the child’s caregiver/teacher, the health advocate should work with the child’s caregiver/teacher. The person who is most familiar with the child and the child’s family will recognize atypical behavior in the child and support effective communication with parents/guardians.

A plan for personal contact with parents/guardians should be developed, even though this contact will not be possible daily. A plan for personal contact and documentation of a designated caregiver/teacher as health advocate will ensure specific attempts to have the health advocate communicate directly with caregivers/teachers and families on health-related matters.

The immunization record/compliance review may be accomplished by manual review of child health records or by use of software programs that use algorithms with the currently recommended vaccine schedules and service intervals to test the dates when a child received recommended services and the child’s date of birth to identify any gaps for which referrals should be made. On the Website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), individual vaccine recommendations for children six years of age and younger can be checked at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/scheduler/catchup.htm.

TYPE OF FACILITY

Center, Early Head Start, Head Start, Large Family Child Care Home, Small Family Child Care Home

RELATED STANDARDS

1.3.1.1 General Qualifications of Directors
1.3.1.2 Mixed Director/Teacher Role
1.3.2.1 Differentiated Roles
1.3.2.2 Qualifications of Lead Teachers and Teachers
1.3.2.3 Qualifications for Assistant Teachers, Teacher Aides, and Volunteers
1.4.2.1 Initial Orientation of All Staff
1.4.2.2 Orientation for Care of Children with Special Health Care Needs
1.4.2.3 Orientation Topics
1.4.3.1 First Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training for Staff
1.4.3.2 Topics Covered in Pediatric First Aid Training
1.4.3.3 Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training for Swimming and Water Play
1.4.4.1 Continuing Education for Directors and Caregivers/Teachers in Centers and Large Family Child Care Homes
1.4.4.2 Continuing Education for Small Family Child Care Home Caregivers/Teachers
1.4.5.1 Training of Staff Who Handle Food
1.4.5.2 Child Abuse and Neglect Education
1.4.5.3 Training on Occupational Risk Related to Handling Body Fluids
1.4.5.4 Education of Center Staff
1.4.6.1 Training Time and Professional Development Leave
1.4.6.2 Payment for Continuing Education
1.6.0.1 Child Care Health Consultants
3.1.2.1 Routine Health Supervision and Growth Monitoring
3.1.3.1 Active Opportunities for Physical Activity
3.1.3.2 Playing Outdoors
3.1.3.3 Protection from Air Pollution While Children Are Outside
3.1.3.4 Caregivers’/Teachers’ Encouragement of Physical Activity
7.2.0.1 Immunization Documentation
7.2.0.2 Unimmunized/Underimmunized Children
8.7.0.3 Review of Plan for Serving Children with Disabilities or Children with Special Health Care Needs

REFERENCES

1. Ulione, M. S. 1997. Health promotion and injury prevention in a child development center. J Pediatr Nurs 12:148-54.
2. Kendrick, A. S., R. Kaufmann, K. P. Messenger, eds. 1991. Healthy young children: A manual for programs. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
3. Murph, J. R., S. D. Palmer, D. Glassy, eds. 2005. Health in child care: A manual for health professionals. 4th ed. Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics.
4. Alkon, A., J. Bernzweig, K. To, J. K. Mackie, M. Wolff, J. Elman. 2008. Child care health consultation programs in California: Models, services, and facilitators. Public Health Nurs 25:126-39.
5. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2011. Immunization schedules. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/.
6. Hagan, J. F., J. S. Shaw, P. M. Duncan, eds. 2008. Bright futures: Guidelines for health supervision of infants, children, and adolescents. 3rd ed. Elk Grove Village, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics.