Remarks to the Healthy Child Care America Conference
Prepared Remarks of Elizabeth M. Duke, Ph.D.
Acting Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration
Fifth Annual Conference
Washington, D.C.
September 10, 2001
It’s my pleasure to welcome
you to Washington D.C. this morning for this 5th
Annual Healthy Child Care America Conference. I’m excited to
be here with you today. I want to applaud your tireless effort
to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children.
The theme for this conference
is "Hands-On Partnerships for Healthy Child Care America."
And what a fitting theme it is. Your work is proof positive
that with health and childcare professionals working together,
we can improve the overall quality of child care in America.
We at HRSA are proud
to call you partners. I believe that HRSA’s ongoing work to
meet the needs of mothers and children is greatly strengthened
by partnerships like Healthy Child Care America. To be successful,
we need the sustained and dedicated efforts of leaders like
you at the local level.
Our mission at the Health
Resources and Services Administration is to improve the nation's
health by ensuring access to comprehensive, culturally competent,
quality health care for some of the country’s most vulnerable
families and individuals. Your commitment helps us in this mission
and complements President Bush and Secretary Thompson’s goal
to ensure greater access to quality health care for all Americans.
Like you, President Bush
and Secretary Thompson want to see an America where good healthcare
is a stepping stone to childhood success and fulfilled ambitions.
In fact, Healthy Child Care America and the department share
a mutual goal. We both want an America where all children are
able to enjoy active, productive lives. Our children are the
hope of tomorrow, and we all must do what we can to help them
meet their full potential. I am particularly reminded of this
on the day after Grandparent’s Day, having spent the day with
my own children and their families, including three little granddaughters.
And, as a working mother who relied on out of home child care
and with two daughters who are also working moms, I am a strong
believer in maximizing linkages between health care providers
and the child care community and developing comprehensive and
coordinated services that will benefit children across this
country.
We need you to promote
safe, healthy, and appropriate activities and an environment
where a kid can be a kid. We need you to discuss with parents
the need for immunizations and health screenings for their children.
We want you to take an active roll in improving nutrition, providing
support to parents and answering questions when they have them.
Your expertise sheds light on problems and issues that sometimes
parents might miss.
Strengthening partnerships
between health and child care professionals continues to be
the mission of Healthy Child Care America. All grantees are
charged to develop quality assurance activities, to build infrastructure,
and improve access to health insurance and medical homes.
Quality assurance activities
have centered on the implementation of Caring for Our
Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards Guidelines
for Out-of-Home Child Care Settings. This resource makes
it possible for you to help your states implement the child
care health and safety standards necessary to improve the quality
of child care programs. During this meeting you will be introduced
to the newly revised second edition of Caring for Our
Children which will be available in hard copy in December.
The document will also be available on the web site of the National
Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care. The Center,
working in partnership with you, the American Academy of Pediatrics,
and the American Public Health Association has successfully
guided the development of the second edition. They will continue
to be available to you for technical assistance as you go about
the implementation of Caring for Our Children
in your states.
Infrastructure building
is the second major objective of the HCCA Initiative. As HCCA
grantees, you accepted the charge to develop and implement statewide
systems for child care health consultants, working in partnership
with the National Training Institute for Child Care Health Consultants.
This work is a wonderful example of how things can start small
and build to strong partnerships across the country. To date,
over 44 States have sent health and child care professionals
to the Training Institute and they have returned to you as Child
Care Health Consultant Trainers. Identifying and training other
health and child care professionals in your states will move
you further along toward the achievement of this objective.
Access to health insurance
and medical homes is the third objective for HCCA. It is also
a HRSA goal from our strategic plan. In using the child care
environment as an access point for health insurance, you are
assuring that child health insurance programs such as Medicaid
and CHIP provide access to medical homes for children in child
care. We have a strong and committed national partner in the
American Academy of Pediatrics in achieving this objective.
I know you are working
with Health Systems Research to develop HCCA performance indicators
and outcome measures. This is indeed a critical activity, and
I applaud your efforts in this area.
In closing, I share with you my belief that building strong
partnerships between health and child care systems is very good
for kids and that it takes "a hands-on" approach.
I urge you to keep all of your partners together and with you
throughout this process. Your mission began as a partnership
between health and child care service systems, and it will continue
to be successful if those partnerships remain intact. With you
--and people like you in communities across America -- working
collectively and collaboratively to build quality systems of
care, I am confident we can do an even better job of meeting
the needs of families and children.
Again, thank you for
inviting me here today, and all the best for a most successful
conference.
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