State of Maine Daily Health Check Forms for children and staff were sent out to providers on 3/23/2020. Find them here. UPDATED 6/16/2020 forms for staff and children can be found below.
FCCAM member shared COVID-19 specific material they designed and use in their program.
Daily Attendance & Child Health Screening Form
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests three key factors to use in deciding whether a child is too sick for child care:
- The child cannot participate in activities
- The child’s illness presents a risk to other children or staff
- You cannot care for the child while maintaining appropriate care for the other children
How Sick is Too Sick ~ an informational sheet on illnesses, symptoms and need to be home or not
Daily health checks are a quick way to make sure a child is healthy enough to be in your program. As a small business owner, you set your policies and it is up to you (not the family) to decide whether a child is healthy enough to stay in child care. You must consider the health of the other children, staff, yourself and your family.
As family child care providers we usually have a very good understanding of what is “normal” for each child in our care. You can usually tell when a child isn’t well enough to participate in activities, and thus too sick to stay in the program. Daily health checks can help reduce the transmission of infectious diseases within your program by identifying children who should be excluded, and enabling you to plan for necessary care while the child is in care. Daily health checks can be very useful for families if a child has a long-term physical or mental health need. Documentation of any changes in the child’s appearance or behavior, can also be important if you suspect child abuse or neglect.
A daily health check should be conducted as soon as possible after a child enters the child care facility, ideally, before the guardian leaves the building. Health checks should also occur whenever a change in the child’s behavior or appearance is noted while in care. Providers gain the information necessary to complete a daily health check by direct observation of the child, by querying the parent/guardian, and, where applicable, by conversation with the child.
The daily health check should address:
- Reported or observed illness or injury affecting the child or family members since the last date of attendance;
- Reported or observed changes in behavior of the child (such as lethargy or irritability) or in the appearance (e.g., sad) of the child from the previous day at home or the previous day’s attendance at child care
- Skin rashes, impetigo, itching or scratching of the skin, itching or scratching of the scalp, or the presence of one or more live crawling lice
- A temperature check if the child appears ill (a daily screening temperature check is not recommended)
- Other signs or symptoms of illness and injury (such as drainage from eyes, vomiting, diarrhea, cuts/lacerations, pain, or feeling ill).
Use all your senses when doing a health check.
Remember the daily health check needs to respect the family’s culture as well as the child’s body and feelings. They can and should be performed in a relaxed and comfortable manner.
Here are 2 samples of Daily Health Check forms ~ Sample 1 and Sample 2
Maine Licensing regulations require that child care providers report Notifiable Conditions List: Illnesses that must be reported to the Maine CDC (PDF) . Here the state’s Notifiable Conditions Reporting Form (Word) | PDF. At this time COVID-19 is not listed, but should at minimum be covered under Influenza -associated.
fccamaine.com 