지역사회 영유아 건강·영양·안전 지원 시범사업 - 보육시설을 중심으로 -

Abstract

It has been emphasized that comprehensive support programs contribute to healthy, safe and nutritious environments at child care centers for developing young children. However, human resources, professional information and knowledge promoting such environments are usually limited at child care centers. Accordingly, the First Report for the President of Supporting Childhood Rearing Policies also have suggested systemic and comprehensive supports for children at child care centers should be at a base of public centers supporting families in every community. Based on the needs of this society, Korean Institution for Child Care and Education (KICCE) conducted a pilot study to relate community resources with child care centers in order to improve services of health, safety and nutrition for young childre.

In order to implement the community based support programs enhancing health, safe and nutritious child care centers, that is, the Health, the Safety and Nutrition Support Project (HSNSP), a consortium of specialists of each field was organized. KICCE played a role as the central point of networking and coordinated all the parts of the project; the Korean Association of Nutritionists (KAN) organized cooperative teams for the study; medical specialists also participated in this study as resource persons for the health part of the project voluntarily.

As for the participants of the HSNSP, the first step of recruitment was selection of three areas, where support and co-operation from local health institutions were available; the selected areas were Sungdong-gu and Jungnang-gu in Seoul, and Ansan city in Kyeonggi province. In each area voluntary public child care centers was then recruited for the HSNSP implementation. In particular, one child care center in each area was recruited as fucus centers where comprehensive and intensive programs of the HSNSP were implemented.

The followings are detailed contents of the HSNSP that were implemented. As for the heath program, at first, each participating child care center assigned a teacher for a `heath teacher", and the local medical specialists trained health teachers of their community. Also, all the participating centers were provided with a set of health management forms and a first-aid kit. In particular, heath examinations for the children of three focus child care centers were arranged. Regarding the nutrition program, a nutritionist was dispatched to each of three focus child care centers to manage and supervise nutritional services, provision of meals and nutrition education to children, cooks and teachers. Also, a series of education sessions were provided for participating child care centers in three areas. As for the safety program, a team of safety check-up visited three focus child care centers to investigate their safety status.

Before and after the implementation of the HSNSP, a series of pre- and post- surveys were implemented to check effects of the project with questionnaires. In addition, directors, cooks and heath teachers of thee focus centers were interviewed in depth. What was found through the HSNSP implementation can be summarized as follows:

The results of surveys showed that health and nutrition programs had positive effects on promoting the levels of health and nutrition services and managements at child care centers. In particular, the training program of heath teachers, employment of a full-time a nutritionist, and visit of safety-check team enhanced specific knowledge of health, nutrition and safety at child care centers and changed attitudes toward their importance.