About CCHCs |

Active Child Care Health Consultants

Child Care Health Consultants (CCHCs) are trained health professionals with education and experience in both child and community health and early care and education. CCHCs work with early care and education programs to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate strategies to achieve high quality, safe and healthy child care environments.

Active CCHCs in North Carolina have successfully completed the NC Child Care Health Consultant Course and are listed on the Find a CCHC page. CCHCs listed as primary may be contacted to provide services to child care facilities in the county/ies they serve.

CCHC One-Pager

Download a one-pager on Child Care Health Consultation here: CCHC one-pager 2022

What do CCHCs do?

Assess the environments for health and safety in child care programs
Develop strategies for inclusion of children with special health care needs
Support early educators with preventing and managing injuries and infectious disease
Connect early educators and families to community health resources
Provide up-to-date information on regulations and best practices to early educators
Provide health and safety training and technical assistance to early educators

When to Contact a CCHC

When a child care program could benefit from training, technical assistance, coaching, assessment, or quality improvement planning in any area of health and safety including the following:

Quality Health, Safety, and Wellness Practices
[Health and Safety] Policy Development and Implementation
Health Education
[Health and Safety] Resource and Referral
Illness and Infectious Diseases
Children with Special Healthcare Needs
Medication Administration
Safety and Injury Prevention
Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery
Infant and Child Social Emotional Wellbeing
Child Abuse and Neglect
Physical Activity
Nutrition
Oral Health
Environmental Health
Staff Health and Wellness

CCHCs make a difference

Child care health consultation has shown to positively impact:

health and safety policies and practices in child care programsⁱ
indicators of health and access to preventive health care for children and staffⁱⁱ
the development and use of standards based health and safety policies in early childhood education programsⁱⁱⁱ

ⁱ Alkon, Abbey, et al, Child Care Health Consultation Improves Health and Safety Policies and Practices, Academic Pediatrics, September 2009
ⁱⁱ Isbell, Patricia, et al, Improvement of Child Care Programs’ Health and Safety Policies, and Practices, and Children’s Access to Health Care, Linked to Child Care Health Consultation, NHSA Dialog: The Research-to-Practice Journal for the Early Childhood Field, 2013
ⁱⁱⁱ Ramler, Malia, et al, The influence of child care health consultants in promoting children’s health and well-being: A report on selected resources. US DHHS, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, HRSA. 2006