Safety Practices and Policies -


     Being a child care provider can be a time full of learning, development, and excitement, but if the learning environment is not equipped to be safe it can also be a time of fear and injuries. Creating an environment where children can have fun learning and exploring their developing abilities must be built on safety measures and practices. Whether in a classroom, outside, or on a fieldtrip, quality teachers try to provide the safest environment possible, which will allow for children to maximize their abilities to grow and learn.

     As preschool age children are now fully mobile, extremely curious, and ready to test their environments boundaries, many situations can occur during a day that make children unsafe. The first of which is falling. Falling can occur both indoors and out and can happen because of unsafe play equipment, running indoors, and because of other children being unsafe with each other.  Because of this, there are several safety policies that caregivers of preschool children are to follow. These have to do with keeping all the equipment that children play on in good repair, discouraging children to run indoors, and promoting safe play with peers. While children will always test their boundaries, they should be shown and encouraged to play in a safe manner. This includes using play equipment in the way it was intended, taking time to show them how to play with equipment, toys, and other children, and supervising play.  These measures should help prevent many falls and the severity of these falls.

    Another hazardous situation that children may find them in is a poisoning one. Because preschool age children still do not fully understand cause and effect, most do not read, and they imitate the adults in their lives, poisoning is a very real danger (Robertson, 2010). Because of this, hazardous materials must be kept locked up, out of reach of children to prevent the possibility of poisoning and written policies on where and how to store these items is essential. This is a very good policy to follow any place children spend their time, keeping cleaning solutions and other hazardous materials away from children and in a secure location helps to limit the chance of a poisoning. As we know, accidents do happen and a child may ingest something toxic, in the event of this happening, it is best to have the number for poison control on hand.

     Still another hazard that preschoolers and their caregivers must contend with is collision with objects.  This, like poisoning, occurs do to a child’s lack of ability, imitation, lack of impulse control, as well as environmental hazards. Because of this, teachers and parents alike can help minimize this risk by creating environments, both indoors and out, that have specific zones and plenty of room for these zones because these collisions can and do happen anywhere. Because of this, adults need to pay close attention to how areas are set up to help prevent collisions with objects.

     While preschoolers are able to physically do most activities and they have a better understanding of cause and effect, they are still likely to choke. These older children are less likely to choke on a toy or small object, but food can still pose a threat. Because of this, food should be in age appropriate sizes and portions and adults should supervise meals and snacks. This is also why state licensed child care providers must be current on the first aid and CPR training, in case there is a choking related emergency.  Choking can happen at any time and in any place, because of this parents should be aware of these same emergency techniques and it is a very good idea to have CPR and first aid certification.

     The final situation I will be discussing today is burns, while these are less likely to happen in a child care facility, they are more likely to happen at a child’s home or with home based child care. Because preschool age children want to imitate the adults in their lives and strive to be helpful, a burn can happen due to a lack of a smoke detector, a liquid that is too hot, or touching a hot burner or light bulb (Robertson, 2010).  These can be prevented at home and in child care facilities by taking proper fire prevention techniques, such as working fire detectors, having working safety equipment to keep children from touching stoves or light bulbs and by having thermometers to accurately measure water temperature. This is why parents and teachers can teach a child to “Stop, Drop, and Roll” in case of clothing fire, also talking with children about escape plans in case of a fire is essential and why state mandates that fire drills are practiced at least monthly. But the main ways to try to prevent burns is by supervising children and their activities and being aware of environmental hazards and modifying them to make the area safer.

     This assignment has taught me so much about safety and prevention of hazardous situations; I cannot wait to share these tips with parents and child care givers alike. I believe that as parents and teachers we get caught up in the child and sometimes forget about the environmental hazards that can lead to falls, poisonings, and collision with objects, choking, and burns. The more aware adults are of their environments, the more prepared they can be for hazardous situations that may come about.

Reference

Robertson, C. (2010). Safety, nutrition, and health in early education (4th ed.). Belmont, CA:

Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.