Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Safer Child Care: Comment Period on HHS regulations

A window briefly reopened for comment on proposed health and safety changes to the federal child care regulations.
 
The federal government announced today that  it will extend the comment period on proposed changes to its Child Care and Development Fund regulations to August 23, 2013.
 
The changes are intended to strengthen health and safety requirements.

This is an opportunity to point out 
the importance of requiring training and 
education for child care providers, about the vulnerability of young children 
to inflicted head injury and about the need to have coping skills for the inevitable moments of frustration and anger that come with caring for young children.

That message can come from anyone who knows a child 
affected by an inflicted head injury, but the parents of a child injured by a care provider can perhaps best emphasize the point.
Nationwide standards for education about SBS and the vulnerability of young children 
to inflicted head injuries would not cover all child care providers, but it would be a good start.  

A national standard could also provide impetus and motivation for child care providers 
to talk with parents and other caregivers, not just to keep children safe, but to keep themselves safe.

The Federal Register Notice has instructions for submitting comments.  Link to Notice
Notice:
 
This announcement is to notify you that the Office of Child Care (OCC) has reopened the comment period for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (78 FR 29441). Today a notice was published in the Federal Register to formally reopen the comment period for 10 days. Public comments on the proposed rule are due by 11:59 p.m. (eastern daylight time) on Friday, August 23. Comments can be submitted electronically by visiting the Federal Register Web site link below, or you can submit written comments to the following address: Office of Child Care; Aerospace Building, Fifth Floor East; 370 L’Enfant Promenade, S.W.; Washington, DC 20024; Attention: Cheryl Vincent, Office of Child Care.