Hi. Today our topic is safety and the prevention of injuries. Our quote to start with, safety doesn't happen by accident. Being safe in your classroom, keeping the children safe doesn't happen by accident. We have to think about it, we have to plan for it. We have to teach safety. Injuries happen though. There are some times when we cannot prevent injuries. We can prevent them from being more serious, but when injuries do happen, we have to know what to do. Injuries are more likely to happen when children are involved in gross motor activities. Especially young children, when they're running around and they're chasing each other. If you have a hill on your playground or materials in your classroom that are cleaned up properly, children may be more likely to fall and trip and get hurt. There's a disruption in the routines. When things are different, children's sometimes get anxious, they sometimes get upset. They sometimes stop listening and forget what they're supposed to be doing and what the rules are. If there's going to be something different in the schedule, it's a good idea to keep the children informed of it, let them know ahead of time so they are prepared for it. Staff members are busy or absent and that's why it's important for us as teachers in the classroom or caregivers to plan ahead. Get our materials ready for our science project that day. Have everything out and ready to go. Because if we're turned around and we're getting the paint out and we're getting the paper, we're not able to supervise the children properly and they might be doing some things maybe that might cause them to get hurt. If staff members are absent, children might be more likely to get injuries, and that might be because if you have as a substitute in your classroom, they might not know the rules, they might not know what children are and are not able to do. They don't know the abilities of the children in your classroom as well as you do. Good idea to maybe if you have a substitute, go over the rules with them. This is what the children can do, this is what they should not be doing. Go over that with them before you go on the playground, or before the children arrive in the morning. Injuries can happen when children are tired, or when they're hungry. Like the disruption in the routine. If they're tired and hungry, they're not thinking clearly. They're not thinking about what the rules are and how to be safe and what they should be doing in the classroom. They're thinking about, I really want to just lay down and go to sleep. They get cranky, they don't listen and the same with being hungry. Staff members are not aware of a child's abilities. I talked a little bit about this if you have a substitute. But when that substitute comes in to a three-year-old room where some of the children maybe are able to go into the climber without assistance and you, as a teacher, know which children those are. Where some of the children maybe need some help, a little bit of guidance, maybe just you standing there behind them to make sure that they're going to get up on the equipment okay. As a staff member, you know all that, but a substitute or someone knew coming into the classroom might not know that at the beginning of the year when you're just learning the children, then you might not know that information. If children are in a new or different environment, it might be more likely that they don't know what is safe. They don't understand the boundaries of the newer different environment. If you're on a field trip and they're really excited, they sometimes forget the safety rules. Good idea to remind children when you go on a field trip or if you're going to a different playground, what the safety rules are going to be and when children are excited or distracted. Why is it important for us to be thinking about safety? Thinking about safety can protect children from injury and harm, can prevent all injuries, as we've already said. But it can protect them from serious injuries and harm by keeping your equipment safe, making sure it's age appropriate, make sure its size appropriate, making sure that the children know the rules and staff members know the rules. It's important because you can prevent many injuries by thinking about the safety considerations. It provides children with security. If you have those safety rules in place and they know what their boundaries are, they feel more secure in your classroom. It provides parents with a peace of mind. They know when they leave that center that they're going to come back and their child is going to be happy and they're going to be healthy and safe. Some basic guidelines when thinking about safety. Always conduct regular safety checks. In your classroom, in your home, look around at all of the toys and the materials to make sure that none of them are broken, to make sure that there are no sharp edges on anything. Also, before you go out into the playground, you should go out there and make sure that the fence is closed, to make sure that there are no animal droppings out there, to make sure that there are no mushrooms growing up through your wood chips, which seem to give a big issue when I worked at one of my centers. Go out there, check the materials, check the environment, make sure everything is safe before the children go out. Eliminate, fix, and avoid hazards. If there are mushrooms growing on the playground, you need to pick all of those out before the children go out there. If there are broken toys, can you fix them? If you can fix them, do that, if you cannot, take them off the playground or out of your classroom and avoid hazards. Thinking about if there's a big ice patch on your playground, make sure that you either break the ice apart or you put something around it and make sure that the children understand that it's not safe to play on that at that time. Look through a child's eyes. This is an important one that I think sometimes we forget about. We are looking at the materials and the environment from a different viewpoint as a child. Get down on your knees, look around, what do you see? Do you see anything different than you did when you were standing up? Because you're getting down, you're seeing what a child is going to see. Read labels and instructions carefully. You're looking for materials that are safe for children. We will talk about that a little bit more in depth in a few slides. Research donated items. Donated items are great because materials are expensive and we don't often have a large budget to buy everything we would like to buy it, but sometimes items get recalled. We do not know that. If you get a donated item for your center, just look it up and see if it's been recalled, looking at the age limits for it. Make sure it's safe for the children that you are caring for. Review your rules often. Your rule chart should be posted in your room. It should be talked about often. It should be referred to often. The children should know and understand what the rules are. You might have a few rules charts. You might have one for inside and you might have one for outside. If that is the case, review the outside one before you go outside every day so children understand what is expected of them when they go outside. Teach children about safety. Explain to them the rural chart and what it's for. It's to keep them safe. Planning use positive transitions. Transitions can sometimes be a difficult time for some children. If they are excited or confused or anxious, then as we said before, they might be more susceptible to injuries. If you plan your transitions and they're smooth, and the children understand what they're doing and they're all busy in the transition from one activity to the other, then there's less of a chance of injury. Stay within your ratios. Each state has different ratios for childcare. Make sure that you know what the ratios are for your state and stay within those ratios. The ratios, one of the purposes of those is to keep children safe. Always supervise the children. Have everything ready. Like I said, you're always looking around, you're listening, you're watching. It's not a time to be catching up on what your coworker did over the weekend or what they did last night or the last movie they saw. You're there with the children. If you want to talk about all of this stuff with your coworker, wait until your break or wait until you're done with your shift. Basic guidelines again. Always drink and eat at a table. Obviously this can be a choking hazard if a child puts food in their mouth and they get up and they start running around. So make sure that children understand when they're eating or drinking that they have to be sitting. Traps all staff should be trained. They should be trained in your safety regulations, your safety policies for your center. They should be trained in your emergency drills. They should be trained in CPR and first aid and other regulations of your state are really important. They should know all of your emergency procedures, your fire drills, your lockdowns, your stay in place. All staff should understand what those are, no matter if they're the cleaning person, the kitchen person, or the lead teacher in a classroom. Everybody in the building should understand those emergency procedures. Having an open door policy is important for a few things. Again, this gives parents a peace of mind knowing that they can come into your center or your home at anytime and see what's going on and check on their child. It's good for the parents for their peace of mind. It keeps you accountable also, that you never know who's going to walk in your door. It keeps you on track of what you're supposed to be doing. Make a secure facility in these times is really important. So making sure that your doors are locked and you have whatever it is you have for parents and families, whether it's a key card or a code or a buzz in or you're in a home so you look out the window to make sure you know who's out there, whatever it is, but your facility should always be secure. Not anyone can just walk in. Your facility should also be child proofed. Having safety gates in front of bathrooms or basement stairs or upstairs, anything like that, is really important for younger children. Window guards, if you have windows that are short enough that children might fall out of them or that they are low enough, I guess, that children might fall out of them and making sure that electrical outlets are always covered. Your environment is very important. It can prevent a lot of injuries, if you pay attention to your environment. There should always be space for movement. Thinking about cleaning up the toys, thinking about alleyways or entry ways into different areas. There should be enough space that one or two children can pass each other without having to wait for another child to go through. Tall furniture such as shelving units should be bolted to the walls. The reason for that is a child may climb up there and if it's not bolted to the wall it could fall over on them. The furniture size in your room should match the children. Meaning, if you're in a toddler room, your chairs and your tables should be toddler size furniture, your playground should be toddler size materials. If you are in a three-year-old room, a four-year-old or a preschool, then your chairs and your furniture and your outdoor equipment is a different size. If you are in a mixed age group because you do family daycare, then you should have different sizes for the different children in your rooms. So that if you only have larger furniture for preschools and you have some younger children, they're not going to be comfortable, their feet are not going to be on the floor when they're in their chair, they're not going to be able to get in and out independently. Furniture should be placed away from windows and shelves. That is for climbing purposes also. If you have a couch and it's front of your picture window, you might be thinking about talking to the children about the rules for just sitting on the couch, not climbing up the back because that is your home. If you can move it away from the window, that might be a good idea. Your room arrangement is important also. If you have a sensory table and you use water or popcorn or rice or whatever you put in there, it often gets on the floor. If you have that table right near your entryway or your exit, it's a slipping hazard. It's a falling hazard because it's slippery if it's water. If it's rice or popcorn, people can easily step on it and lose their balance. Having that in a corner of the room where there might be a lot of traffic would be a good idea. Also thinking about an area having it near a sink. If the children are painting a lot, and they're making messes, it's much easier for cleanup if you have it near a sink plus it's materials all over the place. Keep isles free of toys, and materials. Again, falling hazards. The more things on the floor, the more tripping that probably is going to happen in your classroom. It's really important for us to be teaching children the importance of cleaning up after themselves, and the responsibility of cleaning up after themselves. Break up long aisles. If you have a long alleyway in your room, a toddler's going to look at that, and go that looks really fun. I'm going to run all the way down to the other end. Then when I get to the other end, I'm going to turn around, and I'm going to run back. It's like a raceway for children when they see stuff like that. Try, and put shelving in their dividers, whatever it is, and break up those long aisles so it's not so enticing for children. Your routines, and your schedule are very important. We talked in the slide a few minutes ago about the ASTM. That is the American Society for Testing Materials, and any materials that you buy, and some of the other materials that you might use in your classroom should be approved by the American Society for Testing Materials. You can determine that by the label. If you look on this label, this is some paint, and it's from the dollar store. Not all dollar store stock is not able to be able to use in your classroom. Just make sure that it has those words where it says conforms to ASTM. You want to make sure that all of your products that especially practice that children might put in their mouth or eat the glue, the paint, markers, anything like that, make sure that it says conforms to ASTM. Even if it says that, you still have to think about the age group that you're working with also because I will tell you like Sharpie markers, the permanent markers. They might say this on there, but guess what? You probably don't want your toddlers or your threes or fours using sharpie markers, you want them to use washable markers. Even if it says this, just be careful that it's going to be appropriate for the age group of children that you will care for. Let's talk about the outdoor environment. The appropriate equipment must be available for the age group, and the size of the children that you are giving care to. Like I said, the toddler children are going to need smaller equipment than the preschool children. Surfacing is important for your climbers if it is above, and this is going to be a state regulation that you're going to have to look in your regulations, and check on your surfacing, and what your state says you need to have. There are different levels. I guess, where I'm it has to be three feet thick, the surfacing. It can be wood chips that can be tighter shreds. It can be those little rocks. But depending on where you are, is what your regulation is going to say that you need. It's also going to tell you what playground equipment needs that surfacing because all of it does not. It depends upon how high it is. Also, look in your regulations to see if fencing is required around your outdoor area. That's going to be again in your regulations. Supervision. We have discussed that already. It's important when you're outside that you are in a place where you can view all of the children that are outside playing at that time. It is not a time to go out and stand next to your coworker if you have one, and again, talk about the movie you saw last night or how nice the weather is, or what their good doing this weekend. You should be spread out on the playground and you should be able to see all of the children there. Again, if you have rules for your playground, make sure that you discuss those with the children. Even if you don't have written rules, you might have ones that you do talk about often, so you could still do it that way. Some safety is a concern for many parents and caregivers, and we want to make sure that we are going with what the parent's wishes are. If the parents would like sunscreen applied to their children before they go outside, we need to make sure that we have in our procedures how we do that and it could be the parents bring in sunscreen, it could be we have a sunscreen that we use for everybody, which sometimes it's not a good idea because of allergies or skin conditions. So oftentimes you might have parents bringing their own sunscreens for their children. Do not share a child sunscreen with another child, and you should be documenting when you are applying the sunscreen. Another part of sun safety is hydration. That if you were outside and it's hot, you should be supplying the children with something to drink, whether it's their water bottles that they bring in, whether it's, you're bringing cups of water outside for them to drink. That's really important, especially in the hot weather. Making sure that your equipment on your playground is safe and there are a few places you can go to check that. There consumer products safety commission and the American society for testing materials is going to give you that information. Safety also includes safe sleep. There are certain guidelines for safe sleep, they're called the ABCs. They are, A: the child sleeps alone, B; the child sleeps on their back, and C in a crib, and I realized that if you're in a family home, you might not have a crib or room for a crib for every child. But they should be in an enclosed area with a flat, hard bottom, like a pack and play would be a good option for that and that is approved by usually state regulation. So check that. But you should not put an infant or a young, young toddler especially if they're not able to roll over or move their head very well you should never ever put them in a bed. You should never put them on pillows, you should never put them on a couch. They should be in a safe environment. We also need to think about the temperature. It's recommended that there are no blankets in the crib, there are no pillows, there are no stuffed animals, there are no bumper pads, that's the alone part too, alone without another person or alone with nothing in there with them. The temperature there are sleep sacs, if your home is cold or your room is cold instead of a blanket for very young children. But it's said often that the child is probably hot if you are hot, or the child is cold if you're cold. So think of it that way and you don't have to put 15 blankets on a child. A smoke-free home is the best environment for a baby. Pacifiers are recommended. They self-soothe. The sucking motion, self-soothes the child, and breastfeeding is always recommended for children. If you want more information on this safe sleep, there's a link right here that goes into a little bit more depth on all of that information. Some tips for parents and caregivers. Number 1, place your baby on his or her back. We said that already. Number 2, use a firm sleep surface such as a mattress in a safety approved crib or a pack and play. Keeps soft bedding such as blankets, pillows, bumper pads, and soft toys out of the sleep area, so that's the alone part. Have the baby share your room and not your bed. Again, the alone part. You probably are going to have some state requirements that you will have to look into. I can't really discuss all of the state requirements. I know what mine are in my state, so that is something that you're going to have to look up. I will have a link in the resources that might help you find your state and what the regulations or requirements are for your state. Most states have a licensing certification or registration requirement. This is administered by individual states and there are rules and procedures that childcare providers need to go by. In order to operate their child care facilities legally you would need this licensing, certification, or registration. It sets a baseline of requirements for a child care giver. It includes childcare centers and family childcare. Childcare providers must comply with the policies and regulations. It's really important that you go and find those regulations for your state to know what they are and they vary from state to state. Like I said, I can't really tell you what is in your state regulations. I can tell you what's in mine but yours might be very different. The purpose of this licensing is to help and protect the health and safety of children. If you're following all of the policies and the regulations that are put forth, that is protection for the children. They often include policies for risks and prevention for spread of diseases, fire, and safety hazards, risk and prevention of injuries, developmentally appropriate activities, supervision, and staff requirements. You might now see all of these in the regulations. You are definitely going to see more than these in your regulations though. There are federal training requirements for health and safety. The first one is that, and this varies by state to state too depending on if all of the people in your center or home need to have pediatric first aid in CPR or only a certain number of them. Make sure you look that up and know some more training on the prevention and control of infectious diseases. Staff members need training and safe sleep and prevention of sense wrenching of shaken baby syndrome, head trauma, and child mistreatment, recognition and prevention of child abuse and neglect, use of medication. This might vary state-by-state also in how they handle this. In my state it is voluntary. If a center or home provides medication for children, the staff members have to go through an intensive training on that. Then only the people who have gone through the training can give the medicine to the children, but it's voluntary. You could say I don't want to go through the training, it cost too much money and I don't have the time and then the families would have to either come in and give medication at the prescribed time or figure out what they are going to do. Prevention of and response to emergencies caused by food allergies, emergency preparedness, and response for natural disasters and other events. The handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous, oh my gosh, can't you say that word, materials including blood and vomit. Indoor and outdoor safety and safety when transporting children. Again, this might vary from state to state. It is optional if you're in care for children, whether you want to transport them. There are a lot of regulations that might go with that and many people opt not to go that route. Then a training in child development, physical activity, and nutrition. Again, there's a link right there that you can go into and get a little bit more information on these trainings. Safety is very important in our childcare centers and our childcare environments and we need to be prepared and we need to always be thinking about how to keep our children safe. Thank you.
