As educators, we have a lot of responsibilities towards the little people in our care. With National Quality Frameworks in place to guide the care we provide, and the education supporting growing minds.
Professional development is an important task for all educators, to follow up on and continue to learn and grow in our roles. With so many standards, frameworks, and regulations in place already, why is food safety, and hygiene an important practice to build on?
Food safety does not just mean how we handle food. It looks at storage, re-heating, minimising cross-contamination, and reducing the likelihood of food borne illness starting and spreading throughout a centre. Whether your centre provides food to the children in your care, or families are providing the food for their own children, the risk of food borne illnesses in centres throughout Australia are high.
he more we can do to prevent these, the greater ability we show to meet the National Quality Standards, the better equipped we can be when it comes to the assessment and rating process.
With the level of children’s allergies and anaphylaxis on the rise, it’s important staff are aware of minimising the risk of cross-contamination in centres, and are aware of how to pass on this knowledge to families.
Storing food safely, even when it comes to first foods such as breast milk and formula, is key in preventing bacteria growing and thriving, and why awareness on how, and where to store food is important knowledge to factor into our practices.
How long food is acceptable to sit out for, and how food needs to be heated are also key contributing factors to minimising the spread of illness.
Centre’s will always have policies and procedures in place to follow, but knowing and educating ourselves in food safety is an ideal practice for all educators to consider. Maintaining and updating our skills and qualifications is all part of the role we take on, and holding current food safety qualifications is something that should not be overlooked.
Especially when supporting the Education and care Services National Regulations.
The Australian Industry and Skills Committee, along with the Australian Skills Quality Authority have developed new food safety units, supporting those most vulnerable. The new food safety units highlight supporting babies and children, people with immune deficiencies, and allergies.
These new units not only provide additional knowledge on following food safety requirements, but they also improve knowledge on applying and monitoring these requirements, and overseeing the day to day implementation of food safety in the workplace.
In the health and community sector, ensuring utmost customer satisfaction is always a top priority. However, one of the customer groups that requires extra attention are children in childcare centres. Serving them with nutritious, healthy, and safe food is a must, not only to satisfy their needs, but also to promote their health and well-being.
It is important that we support and nurture the infants, toddlers, and children in our care in the best possible way we can, not only through education, but the care we provide.
So if your child care centre has a food safety program, you will need to have a Food Safety Supervisor and all other staff serving food should have a Level 1 Food Safety certificate.
