A variety of resources are available for providing health and safety training to health managers, child care health consultants, and other staff who provide health services in early care and education settings.
Professional Development Opportunities in Health and Safety
This webinar explores free online professional development tools to help you understand health and safety in early care and education programs. Learn how to put these resources to work in your practice.
Better Kid Care: Early Learning Professionals
This distance education program enables child care providers to pursue research-based professional development. Many free on-demand courses are available on such topics as handwashing basics, diapering basics, safe sleep practices, food allergies, playground supervision, and more. Better Kid Care coursework is accepted by many states for licensing or quality rating requirements.
CDC TRAIN
CDC TRAIN provides access to more than 1,000 courses developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) programs, grantees, and other funded partners. Courses offered by CDC course providers have been approved and verified by CDC.
Child Care Health Consultation: Skill-Building Modules
Child care health consultants and others who consult about health services can use these modules to explore six interactive, realistic scenarios to build and enhance consultation skills.
Child Care Health and Well-being
Topics in this collection include hazardous materials, abusive head trauma, safe sleep, CCHCs, social-emotional wellness, developmental screenings, and children with special needs.
Early Educator Central
Learn about available training for those interested in an infant and toddler career path. Resources are organized by role to help build competencies as teachers, administrators, trainers/coaches, and professional development system leaders.
FEMA National Preparedness Training and Education
The Individual and Community Preparedness Division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) develops and provides trainings for volunteers and local organizations to support their community during emergencies of all kinds.
Head Start Health Services Competencies Modules
Explore these modules to learn more about competencies that can help Head Start health staff deliver comprehensive services. Staff can use these modules to develop and strengthen the attitudes, knowledge, and skills they need to effectively support the health, safety, and wellness of young children and their families.
Individualized Professional Development (iPD) Portfolio
The iPD Portfolio is a learning management system created to support ongoing professional development for staff in Head Start and child care settings. It has accessible, self-paced courses based on staff roles and interests, including courses related to health, behavioral health, and safety. Many iPD courses offer continuing education units (CEUs) upon completion.
Institute of Child Nutrition (ICN)
ICN offers free, self-paced online courses on many food service and child nutrition topics.
Team Nutrition Webinars & Training
Learn about current topics in child nutrition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Team Nutrition's popular webinars.
Virtual Lab School
Seven professional development tracks provide comprehensive foundational training and more advanced or specialized training. The Foundational Tracks (Infant & Toddler, Preschool, School-Age, Training & Curriculum Specialist, Management, and Family Child Care) each contain 15 courses that align with the standards for the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential and other accreditations. The Focused Topics Track provides an expanding array of courses tailored to particular needs, from building caregivers' resiliency to strengthening food service workers' knowledge of key practices in child care settings. Topics include healthy environments, safe environments, child abuse prevention, child abuse identification and reporting, physical and cognitive development, positive guidance, and more.
Watch Me! Celebrating Milestones and Sharing Concerns
This free online training course provides tools and best practices for monitoring the development of children and talking about it with their parents.
Last Updated: December 14, 2023