Health & Safety Standards

Did you know that our daycare started in a home environment and has grown from there? Our center’s owners are parents themselves. They wanted to create a daycare with everything they could dream of for their own children. That’s why My Childcare Academy has a culture that puts health and safety first. Keep reading to learn about the measures we take each day to keep the children in our care safe.

Here, we’ll cover:

• Security Procedures
• Childproofing Measures
• Clean Environment
• Sick Policy & Medication Regulations
• Healthy Meals & Food Allergies
• Physical & Mental Health
• Adherence to All Licensing Standards
• Employee Training

Security Procedures

All of our teachers have had thorough background checks to ensure that your children are in the care of safe individuals. We have cameras in each room to ensure the best interactions between the teachers and the children. The front doors have security keypads to prevent strangers from entering the building. If a 3rd party is allowed to pick-up a child from My Childcare Academy, parents or guardians will need to put their name in the Brightwheel app. We will not release children to people who aren’t designated by parents or guardians in the app. If teachers do not know the person picking a child up, they will need their ID for us to verify if they have been approved by the child’s parents.

Childproofing Measures

For childproofing purposes, we only allow certain objects in certain areas. For example, there are no choking hazards allowed in classrooms that have children younger than 3. Broken crayons are thrown away or given to the older kids. For children under 3, all food is cut into manageable sizes, no more than ¼ inch thick, to help prevent choking.

As for toys, no toy can make its way into the toddler and infant classrooms unless it passes the choke tube test. This is a tube that mimics how toys make their way down a child’s throat when put in their mouths. If the toy makes it through the tube, that means that a child could choke on it and it won’t be allowed in the classroom.

We understand how curious-minded children are and how easy it is for them to get their hands on things that they shouldn’t. That’s why we store all chemicals away from children. All of our outlets are tamper resistant, making it so children are not shocked or burned if they try to play with an outlet.

Clean Environment

We like to see our childcare center as an extension of our homes, and so we take pride in it. We keep everything clean and make sure to sanitize everything regularly with clorox and bleach water. All commonly touched surfaces are sanitized at least once a day. These include handles, light switches, toilet handles, and door knobs. Tables are sanitized before and after every meal. All toys are cleaned and sanitized at least once per week

We schedule and enforce children to wash their hands when they come inside, after going to the restroom, and before and after eating meals. Children are also taken to wash their hands if they’ve been seen touching their face too much, had fingers in their mouth, or have blown or picked their nose.

For diaper changes, staff members wear new gloves and sanitize the changing tables after each child. They end with washing their hands before changing the next child or moving on to other activities.

During COVID-19, we are sanitizing surfaces and toys multiple times per day. For more information about how we’re keeping children safe, please check out our COVID-19 blog post.

Sick Policy & Medication Regulations

To help keep all of the children in our care healthy, we don’t allow children with fevers of 99 degrees or higher to come to our daycare facility. Children who show signs of vomiting, rashes, coughing, having sore throats, and general unwellness will also be asked to stay home. (Note: Regularly, our sick policy is vomiting, rashes, pink eye, fever of 100.4, and persistent diarrhea. The rest of the mentioned info here is for COVID-19 only. We sanitize and wash so frequently that we don’t usually worry about small coughs and sore throats unless accompanied by a fever).

Children who need to take medications will have them administered by our facility directors. Each time a child is given medication, it will be recorded in the Brightwheel app with a timestamp and dosage. Doing this keeps parents informed of their child’s medication use. They’ll know how much medication to give their child later on if needed and when would be appropriate. Parents may also use the Brightwheel medication recordings to show their doctors.

Healthy Meals & Food Allergies

Knowing what your child puts in their body is super important. All of our parents have access to our monthly menus. They’ll know what their children are eating for AM snack, lunch, and PM snack. Our meals are made mostly from scratch and include meals like rotisserie chicken with roasted carrots, fajitas, vegetarian chili, and homemade pizza.

Does your child have a food allergy? We ask that parents record food allergies in the Brightwheel app. When teachers feed their students, they’ll check the app. A medical symbol will let them know that a child has a food allergy. If the meal includes an item that your child is allergic to, they’ll be given a replacement food item or the item will be eradicated from the menu, depending on the severity of the allergy.

Physical & Mental Health

Physical activity and spending time outdoors is critical to child development. We usually go outside twice a day as long as the weather and air quality permit. We also participate in extracurricular activities like gymnastics, yoga, and dancing!

While physical health is a necessary focus, we believe that mental health is too! We are pro-hugging and loving on children. Because we’re here with them throughout the day, we want to maintain loving relationships. After all, we’re here to guide and love them.

Our discipline motto is, “What do we need to do to teach them how to do it right the next time?” We teach empathy and encourage the children to think of others. We don’t do timeouts. Instead, we ask, “Do you need a moment before we talk?” We believe that leaving a child in time out is a time when they need us the most. We want to foster an environment where children know that the people around them are there for them.

Adherence to All Licensing Standards

We are committed to keeping our facility in line with Utah’s licensing standards. These are a detailed set of rules that we make sure to follow. These rules cover a wide variety of topics, including how much physical activity children get and how medicine is administered. For example, children must be given the opportunity to have physical activity for at least 15 minutes for every two hours that they’re in care. Also, we’re required by the state to keep a six-week log of medication use. To make sure we are in good standing, we undergo scheduled and unannounced inspections by Child Care Licensing.

If you’d like to dig deeper into these licensing requirements, feel free to check out the complete set of state licensing standards. Click the button below.

Care Center Licensing Requirements

Employee Training

Our teachers all have the following certificates: CPR, Food Handlers, and First Aid. Some of our teachers also have their Child Development Associate (CDA) or are working towards it. Teachers receive ongoing training and are required to fulfill a certain amount of training hours each month.

Have Questions?

If you have any questions about our health and safety standards or would like to talk about any accommodations needed for your child, please give us a call. You can reach us at (801) 679-0627.