Child Care Technical Assistance Network Highlights Voluntary National Health and Safety Standards for Child Care Programs
The Child Care Technical Assistance Network describes 'Caring for Our Children' (CFOC) as a national collection of health and safety performance standards for early care and education programs. This framework, developed through collaboration among major child health and early childhood organizations, addresses critical aspects of daily care, including infection prevention, safe sleep practices, medication administration, emergency preparedness, hazard identification, supervision, and child abuse reporting. CFOC Basics, a subset of these standards, serves as a voluntary, foundational set that programs and agencies can utilize as a starting point. It functions as a national benchmark and implementation resource, rather than an automatic federal statute. A CFOC recommendation becomes legally enforceable only when it is integrated into an applicable legal or administrative framework, such as state licensing regulations, statutes, court orders, contracts, or funding conditions. ChildCareEd emphasizes that provi... 
