Dealing with infectious diseases
Understanding how to keep children healthy is an essential part of providing high-quality learning environments for young children. Learning the measures to prevent the spread of the flu and viruses is especially critical. As we near flu season, your center should be taking the following steps:
- Since faucets are one of the areas most prone to contamination, consider installing automatic faucets which can lessen the spread of bacteria.
- Clean and disinfect your classrooms at least once a day.
- Make sure that your center's director educates all teachers on the proper steps they should take to protect children and themselves from the spread of infectious diseases.
- Practice good sanitation in your center. Supervise children during hand washing to ensure that they are practicing the right routines.
- Regularly sanitize toys, especially those that younger children may put in their mouths.
- Similarly, consider investing in trash cans that have foot pedals. In addition to reducing the spread of germs (a person does not need to touch the trash can), they can also be particularly helpful at diaper-changing stations.
ProSolutions Training also offers online child care training, including our course, "Infectious Disease Control: Kick Those Germs to the Curb!" In this course, you will learn how you can protect children and yourself against infectious diseases. By the end of the course, you'll be able to identify the main ways infectious diseases spread and recognize at least four classroom routines that promote wellness. In addition, given a scenario, you will be able to identify the appropriate course of action to prevent the spread of germs.
Our course "Controlling Communicable Disease in Your Program" can also give you some classroom scenarios and tips on how to control the spread of germs.
