Healthy Beverages in Early Care & Education Online Training

This 30-minute, on-demand online training for child care providers is a fun and an interactive way to learn about the latest recommendations for healthy beverages for children and help child care providers meet the requirements of the California Healthy Beverages in Child Care Act (AB 2084).

Providers outside of California may have similar beverage requirements. All young children, regardless of licensing or Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) requirements, can benefit from consuming healthy beverages.

The training is available in both English and Spanish.

The online training has four main messages for child care providers:

Milk - whenever milk is served, serve only lowfat (1 percent) milk or nonfat milk to children two years of age or older.
Juice - limit juice to not more than one serving per day of 100-percent juice.
Sweetened Beverages - serve no beverages with added sweeteners, either natural or artificial. Beverages with added sweeteners does not include infant formula or complete balanced nutritional products designed for children.
Drinking Water - make clean and safe drinking water readily available and accessible for consumption throughout the day.

The training includes videos, short quizzes, activities, and covers topics such as milk, types of fruit juice, drinking water, and reading a nutrition label.

A professional development certificate will be provided upon completion. The course is free for child care providers in California and available for child care providers outside of California for a $15 fee.

Complete the online training today!

Child care providers in California

(1) Create an online account:

Go to extension.org, and click the ‘create new account’ button.
You will need to create a username and password, and provide your email address, first and last name, the state, county and zip-code you live in, and indicate if you are an Extension or USDA employee (if you are not sure, then select ‘no’).
After entering the required information and clicking ‘create my new account’, you will receive an email to verify your account. Verify your account by clicking the link sent to the email address you provided.
Be sure to save your username and password in a secure place where you can easily access it.

(2) Enroll in the online training:

Now that you have created an account, you can enroll in the Healthy Beverages in Early Care & Education training by clicking the link for English or Spanish.
You can also find the training under the ‘Home and Family’ section (Health and Nutrition sub-section) when you log into extension.org with your newly created account.

Child care providers outside of California

You will need to purchase the course for a $15 fee from eXtension Catalog. Purchase the online training in English or Spanish, and follow the directions above ((1) Create an online account) to create an account. Once you have made your purchase, you will be able to enroll in the online training.

Promotional Toolkit

Share the online training with child care providers in your community!

This toolkit contains messages, social media postings, and images to help you reach out to a variety of child care audiences. The toolkit is available in English and Spanish.

Resources

This document includes resources on healthy beverages in early care & education, including laws and regulations, research on sugar sweetened beverages and children's health, policies, classroom activities, guidelines on infant feeding and supporting breastfeeding families, children with special needs, water quality, working with families, milk, food safety and goal setting.

This class was developed by the UCSF School of Nursing, California Childcare Health Program in partnership with the University of California Nutrition Policy Institute and Cooperative Extension, with support from a grant by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Suggested citation: Alkon A, Rose B, Hazard K, Lee DL, Ritchie LD, Hecht C, Hecht K, DiMatteo G, Patel A, Neelon M, Soule K, Diaz Rios K, Ravalin D, Pyeatt G, James P, Tellez S, Beattie A, Borrman A, Chamnes N, Myers L. (2020, February 4). Healthy Beverages in Early Care & Education. eXtension Campus. https://campus.extension.org/course/view.php?id=1722&lang=en_us