(The Center Square) — The Early Childhood Care and Education Advisory Council met this week to vote on technical updates to safety and procedural policies.
These provisions approved at Wednesday’s meeting apply to any early childhood care providers including school child care centers and in-home providers.
The first provision establishes written policies that explain the administration of stocked medications allowed by Louisiana law. The provisions states these policies must be in place at early learning centers and shared with parents and guardians.
Training for how to administer said medication must be done annually from now on.
There were also provisions updating and clarifying determinations of eligibility for child care purposes, specifically to ensure proper criminal history record information.
This includes requiring updates on changes to a household because everyone living at or involved with a place providing at home child care services must have a criminal background check done.
Much of these provisions were about safety, and this one is no different. The next provision guarantees safe sleep procedures in these centers.
This includes mattresses for cribs with properly fitted and clean sheets so that young children don’t get sick or wrapped up in them.
The next provision requires annual review and updates of site emergency plans.
Some provisions had to do with information safety. A provision was introduced to provide confidentiality of records on children and their family. This also means that a center requires parental consent before releasing information that may identify a child.
However, one provision added open information. It aims at adding child age information to transportation records.
Some provisions were much more technical. The next provision adds a brief presumptive eligibility period for redetermination applications.
This is to ensure that children whose applications are submitted at or close to the deadline are not dropped from services while the application is being processed.
The council also looks to provide constant updates on information related to payments made. This is so auto payments can be made prior to child care services, meaning payments are made prospectively.
There were also a few provisions made to technical language, shortening and simplifying codes on compliance for quick readability.
All of these provisions passed without pushback.