Sun Safety
Our service this year is undertaking the Early Childhood Achievement program which helps early childhood services to meet the benchmarks for providing a healthy environment and to promote health across a number of priority areas:
Safe environments
Healthy Eating and Oral health
Mental Health and Wellbeing
Physical activity and movement
Sun Protection
Tobacco, Alcohol and other drugs
We will be working through the framework over this year as part of our Quality Improvement Plan under the National Quality Standards.
The first priority area we are going through is the Sun Protection one as it is a good time of year to address it. These first few weeks as a service we have been using our behaviour expectations cards to incorporate learning about sun safety with children. We have been using early childhood resources from SunSmart Victoria to support children's understandings-
"Australia has one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. Each year over 2,000 Australians die from skin cancer, and more than two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime. It is the most common cancer diagnosed in Australia – and it can be almost entirely prevented with good sun protection."
We have been intentionally teaching effective sunscreen application, talking with children about wearing hats, sun smart clothing, playing in shade when it is hot and drinking plenty of water to stay hydrated.