Georgia State University's Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing Childcare Advantage Network (CAN) program recently graduated its first group of "child care health consultants."
The nurses will work with Georgia's day care centers to improve quality and services.
CAN graduates are trained to help day care providers develop policies for infection control, emergency preparedness and exclusion of ill children.
They also are authorized to conduct health and dental examinations and immunizations, and to educate parents, child care staff and children on health-related issues.
Child care centers throughout the state can now contract with these consultants for advice on improving their services. Many child care centers already have expressed interest in seeking professional advice from the consultants in their health districts, program experts say.
The CAN program is part of a larger project, Healthy Child Care America, launched nationwide by the federal government in 1995 as a response to the growing use of day care facilities and concerns about keeping them healthy and safe for children.
The project authorized the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to train three people from every state as "consultant trainers."
Because of the high number of day care centers in Georgia, Georgia State's nursing school actually funded three of its own faculty - Sherry Gaines, Judith Wold and Janie Leary - to train as consultant trainers at the University of North Carolina.
Gaines, Wold and Leary now are training public-health nurses from Georgia's 19 health districts as CAN consultants. Now, with its first group of graduates and more on the way, the outlook is brighter for ensuring that day care centers around the state are taking better care of children, program experts say.
"The great thing about consultants is they don't regulate child care centers - they work in partnership with centers in their health districts to meet the community's child care needs," said Gaines, the program's project director.
For information about the CAN program, contact Gaines at can@gsu.edu or call 404-651-2032.
- Georgia State University