Hygiene & Safety Standards in Child Care

Hygiene & Safety Standards in
Child Care
What parents should look out for…

A recent report by the National Childcare Accreditation Council (NCAC) highlighted the need for greater hygiene and safety standards in child care so what should parents be looking for when considering a child care service for their child?

Accreditation
It's important to remember that the majority of centres do a great job of looking after our children.

In fact 87 per cent of the long day care centres accredited with the NCAC at 1 July 2010 achieved High Quality assessments in all seven of the quality areas. This is a significant achievement!

To ensure child care centres maintain high standards the NCAC has a strict accreditation process which evaluates services on a variety of criteria.

The NCAC inspectors consider a range of factors in making their decisions including how well staff supervise and engage with children, the safety of the environment and how well food safety and hygiene standards are maintained.

Areas of Concern
Of the centres which failed the recent accreditation process the areas they most often received an unsatisfactory rating included:

Ensure that potentially dangerous products, plants and objects are inaccessible to children.
Implementing effective and current food safety and hygiene practices
Ensuring toileting and nappy changing procedures are positive experiences

When weighing up your child care options it's important to keep these things in mind.

The health and safety section of the CareforKids.com.au child care checklist is a great tool for conducting a quick and thorough assessment of your child's centre.

The NCAC factsheet on Hygiene in Child Care describes the hygiene practices which families should be able to see in operation at their centre and encourages family members to adopt the same practices at home to reduce the risk of infection.

Some of the practices centres should be using include:

Encouraging children to use simple rules of hygiene including hand washing and basic dental care
Ensuring equipment and toys are regularly cleaned/washed and well maintained
Keeping facilities such as bathrooms, kitchens, sleep and rest and play areas clean
Using hygienic toileting and nappy change methods
Using hygienic procedures for wiping noses
Displaying clear signs about the service's hygiene procedures
Hygienic food handling, preparation and storage and rubbish removal
Encouraging families to keep sick children at home

Remember the accreditation process is there to ensure Australian child care centres maintain consistently high standards of care in all areas. You can check the accreditation status of your centre by clicking here.