Safety Practices and Policies

Many people may think once a child reaches the preschool age, that preschoolers are less likely to experience injuries. Preschoolers are still at risk of experiencing some type of hazardous situation common in preschoolers. Some of those situations could be a environmental injuries, choking, inadequate supervision, asthma attacks or consumption of hazardous chemicals. These are just a few of the safety issues child care facilities may experience. As parents, educators, caregivers or administrators it’s important that we are trained on providing safe environments for young children.

In my many years of working with young children, environmental injuries are a common problem in every classroom. Children are constantly testing their boundaries which can result in a child becoming injured. This why caregivers need to learn the ABC’s of Childhood injuries to help them to anticipate injury (Robertson, 2013, pg.68). We need to learn the Accessories of an incident. Accessories help us to learn how the injury happened. Then learn the behavior of the child. This lets us know why it happened. Last, we need to learn the condition of the incident. This allows you to ask questions so you will know when and where the injury took place. Choking is hazardous to preschoolers due to the desire to still place things into their mouths. As we prepare our classrooms with the required materials, toys that may be a choking hazard must be taken in consideration. Placing very small objects in reach of young children is a dangerous decision. Instead items such as small Legos, toys and even manipulative toys need to be locked away to prevent preschoolers from placing them in their mouths. Caregivers should also encourage parents to practice the same routine at home.  Child care facilities are mandated to also have staffs that are certified in First aid and CPR to assist in the time a child does chock while in care of the center. Having proper supervision is a major concern in all preschool classes. Providing the proper teacher to child ratio is a must in order to stay in compliance with our states regulation requirements. Although we reassure the parents that we provide plenty of coverage but is the staff providing proper supervision throughout day. To effectively supervise children staff need to arrange their classrooms so they are able to see each and every child in the room. Providing staff with training on the importance of room arrangement and creating a safe environment will help them to better understand why supervision is important in and out of the classroom. Workshops could be giving to parents as well on how to properly supervise their children at home. Children with Asthma can be a hazardous situation in the classroom. It seems more and more children are experiencing or are born with asthma every year. Child care centers and programs that provide services for young children are now requiring that the child’s medication and medication forms are properly stored in the class before children may attend the program. This allows the staff to have the proper medicine in case a child has an asthma attack while in the center. Child care facilities are requiring these documents before the child’s start date to prevent serious injuries such as unconsciousness or even death to happen while in the care of a child care facility. Parents should notify staff immediately if there are any changes in medicine or treatment to the child if an attack occurs. Poisoning is another big problem when it comes to preschoolers. Preschoolers are not able to compare what is safe and what is unsafe. To prevent the consumption of  hazardous chemicals we must provide clues and educate our children on what is safe to drink and what is not drinkable. This is why child care facilities lock all their cabinets that hold any hazardous chemical such as bleach, hand soap and dish detergent. While working at this one particular day care center, we spent a few days learning about Mr. Yuck. Mr. Yuck was a green face sticker that was used to label chemicals that could harm us if we touch it or drink it. The children enjoyed it because they each got a sticker book and activity sheet to take home with them. They used the stickers to label hazardous chemicals in their own homes. Placing locks on cabinets and closets that store hazardous chemical will enable a child to obtain these chemicals. Also staff and parents can encourage children to leave locked cabinets and doors alone to prevent poisoning.

References

Robertson, C., (2013) Safety, Nutrition and Health in Early Childhood Education. (5th ed), Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, Bellmont,CA.