Online CACFP Training

Effective medication administration is a vital responsibility for child care providers, ensuring the health and safety of children in their care. This comprehensive online course equips early childhood educators with the knowledge and skills needed to confidently and safely administer medication in a child care setting. Through eight engaging lessons, participants will explore critical topics, including legal responsibilities, the “Six Rights” of medication administration, medication classifications, preparation and procedures, accurate documentation, and strategies for managing medication errors. Additionally, the course covers the effects of medication, the proper use of emergency medications, and essential guidelines for storage, disposal, and emergency protocols. By the end of this course, learners will be well-prepared to implement best practices in medication administration, fostering a safe and supportive environment for children. This training meets regulatory requirements and supports professional development for child care providers.

CACFP Annual Training for Child Care Centers is a 3 hour comprehensive online course designed to provide annual required training for sponsors participating in the CACFP.

CACFP Annual Training for Homes is a 3 hour comprehensive online course designed to provide annual required training on meal patterns, the reimbursement process, accurate meal counts, claims submission, and recordkeeping for day care homes participating in the CACFP.

This course is designed to build capacity among child nutrition professionals to standardize recipes. It provides a basic overview of standardized recipes, reasons that child nutrition professionals need to use standardized recipes, and an explanation of how to standardize a recipe. Participants will understand the key elements of standardizing recipes and the benefits to using them in their child nutrition program.

In this course, participants will gain an understanding of CACFP recordkeeping requirements and best practices, equipping them with the knowledge and tools needed to maintain meticulous records while optimizing meal service operations.

One of the hardest parts of planning a CACFP menu is understanding if a food is creditable or not and how much you need to serve. In this brief overview, participants will learn about tools to guide them to determine if a food is creditable to the CACFP meal pattern, and how much they need to serve to be in compliance.

This training is all about the Child and Adult Care Food Program or CACFP. The course covers topics such as what the CACFP program is and what it does, who is eligible to sponsor or offer the CACFP and which children are eligible to participate or receive meals through the program. In addition, the course covers CACFP meal patterns, how to accommodate children with disabilities that affect the diet and recordkeeping requirements that are important for everyone involved with the CACFP to be aware of – even teachers!

This training provides an overview of food allergies, an explanation of regulations for labeling food allergens, and a description of best practices for food allergy plans. Participants will practice finding common allergens on ingredient lists and identify practices that will keep children with food allergies from coming into contact with food that could trigger a reaction.

One of the hardest parts of planning a CACFP menu is understanding if a food is creditable or not and how much you need to serve. In this brief overview, participants will learn about tools to guide them to determine if an infant food is creditable to the CACFP meal pattern, and how much they need to serve to be in compliance.

Explore how to enhance your CACFP meals and decrease food waste by planning and preparing meals that appeal to all 5 senses. In this one hour session, participants will learn how to examine menus and prepare meals that not only taste great, but look, smell, feel and even sound great!

Spend the next hour with us learning about basic food safety and sanitation principles! We’ll review why food safety is an integral part of your operations, the dangers of foodborne illness, and how to apply these lessons to your day-to-day tasks and activities. This course will also cover motivating employees to follow food safety processes and protocols. Feeding children and adults is a noble profession – don’t let a food safety slip mar the reputation of your program!

With a destination of great nutrition and better lifestyles, learning how to incorporate whole grains into your CACFP menu can be a journey. In this one-hour session, participants will punch their ticket and board the whole grain express train, learning about where whole grains come from, how to incorporate them into their menu, and best practices for the preparation methods.

Wanting to learn how to optimize your CACFP Snack Menu, inventory, and labor? Through this one hour session, participants will learn how to use pre-planning methods to optimize their labor hours, kitchen space and equipment, and inventory to build a CACFP Snack Menu from semi-scratch cooking methods while being mindful of budget and nutrition.

Children learn about the world around them by experiencing and exploring their environments. Giving children opportunities to explore and experience their food by touching, tasting, smelling, seeing and hearing it taps into their natural curiosity and uses their preferred mode of learning to teach them about good nutrition from an early age. What they learn about food and nutrition can have lasting effects into adulthood. Let’s spend the next hour learning about the five senses and how to pique that natural curiosity with fun and easy sensory-based food and nutrition education activities!

The first challenge is planning a CACFP Menu, but the challenge can continue in figuring out how to prepare food in healthy ways. Learning how to prepare food in a healthy way can maintain optimal nutrition and increase food consumption while building lifelong healthy eating habits for children.

Are your meals lackluster? Want to increase flavor, decrease plate waste, and increase meal consumption without making a huge impact to your budget? Step into the world of flavor, spices and seasonings! Take a trip through the herb garden and around the seasoning world while learning how to incorporate herbs and spices into your CACFP menus.

This course will give CACFP sponsor monitors an outline of their responsibilities for conducting successful reviews of centers or family day care homes. They will better understand the requirements for reviews and how to assess compliance with USDA regulations. Finally, they will be able to recognize problems that would result in review findings.

In this course, participants will learn to recognize the 6 key indicators for a CN Label is, what a product formulation statement is, and how to use them to build a cycle menu. In addition, participants will explore the vast resources of USDA Standardized recipes, and will learn how to scale these recipes and products to fit their production needs. Lastly, participants will understand the basics of record retention and what documentation would be needed to support food production records, if required by their state.

How important is menu planning to a meal program? The menu plan influences every aspect of the meal program – including purchasing and preparing foods, ensuring that your meals are CACFP creditable, providing adequate nutritional value, accounting for dietary restrictions, and satisfying the tastebuds of the children in your care. In this one hour session, participants will learn about standardized recipes, cycle menus and the benefits of using both of these great tools to maximize kitchen efficiency and food budgets.

All Child Nutrition program operators must procure all goods and services using the federal procurement regulations. This course will define informal procurement thresholds, and the main steps involved in procuring food. It will offer practical strategies for purchasing, and provide resources to ensure that the meals served to program participants are reimbursable.

A winning meal is the key to getting great attendance and keeping kids coming to your site all summer long. While SFSP has its special challenges, in this hour our course, participants will explore exciting menu options for cold meals and hot meals. Participants will learn the SFSP meal pattern and then discover how much creativity and flexibility it has to build the best meal pattern for their needs.

Sponsors must keep full and accurate records so that they can substantiate the number of program meals that they have submitted at each claim for reimbursement. And, that SFSP funds are used only for allowable SFSP costs. This course will discuss recordkeeping requirements for sponsors including meal counts, program costs, monitoring, and training. Participants will learn and appreciate the importance of complete, well organized, and accurate records in the SFSP.

This lesson is designed for Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) institution staff to provide a review of the process and procedures of the state agency administrative review.

CACFP sponsors may need to modify planned meals in order to accommodate participants with disabilities, medical needs or special dietary needs. The course summarizes the responsibilities sponsors have when accommodating participants’ meal requests. The course also discusses medical statements, meal pattern requirements, and accommodating non-disabling special dietary needs.

SFSP sponsors who administer the SFSP have a strong commitment to the wellbeing of the children in their community. They want to serve meals to not only increase quality but to attract children to summer food sites. However, the purchasing of food, goods, and supplies can sometimes be a challenging process. This course will explore the options for buying meals in the SFSP, procurement methods, and the purchasing of local foods to maximize SFSP operations.

The course will help you understand basic procurement standards and the importance of vendor selection when outsourcing the food program. It will cover identifying and evaluating vendors based on quality, pricing and reliability. Managing the vendor contract to ensure the quality and safety of the food program will also be reviewed.

OVS or Offer vs Serve can be a challenge to introduce into your CACFP program and even harder to maintain CACFP compliance throughout menu planning and service. In this hour-long session, participants will learn the rules to OVS success, how to plan menus and prepare meals to maintain compliance, and tips for best practice when incorporating it into their centers.

The budget is the key to understanding the financial side of the SFSP. The SFSP budget helps sponsors establish goals, make decisions, and understand how program funds are generated and spent. Participants will explore the biggest expenses and sources of revenue in the SFSP and evaluate those against their budget to measure the effectiveness of their program operations. Stay on track and build a successful summer meals program!

This lesson provides information about different purchasing options available to CACFP institutions that will not only help minimize the workload and cost of planning and implementing an effective food program but also make sure that the food program is still able to offer high-quality, nutritious foods.

Is your menu feeling a little lackluster? Do you want to infuse new and exciting items into your menu while teaching children about world citizenship and other cultures? In this one hour session, participants will learn how to expand their menus through exploring new cultures and ethnic foods, resources for standardized recipes, and maintain CACFP meal pattern compliance.

Offering meals for the SFSP is a great way to ensure that children have access to meals in the summer months. But how do sponsors make sure that people are aware of SFSP sites? How do sponsors attract children and parents to summer meal sites? There are many forms of promotion and marketing that can help sponsors gain exposure. This course will discuss different ways to reach children and families by exploring forms of marketing and creative programming to build awareness and increase participation in the SFSP.

This course is designed to provide comprehensive guidance and knowledge on effective strategies and practices for attracting, selecting, and promoting the most qualified individuals within an organization. The course will explore recruitment and promotion processes and ensure the organization can build and retain a talented and diverse workforce.

Family style meal service has the opportunity to teach children so much more than just how to eat. Learn the benefits of family style meal service, best practices to incorporate it into your meal service option, and what you must do to maintain CACFP Compliance. In addition, participants will learn best practices for conversations starters around the meal table, how to encourage staff to role model positive eating behaviors, and what equipment is need for family style meal service success.

Sponsors participating in the SFSP agree to maintain the storage, preparation, and service of food with proper sanitation and health standards in ordinance with all state and health laws and regulations. Understanding the proper food safety practices is essential to a successful summer meals site to ensure that the food children consume is safe and to reduce the risk of a foodborne outbreak. This course will promote important food safety practices including good personal hygiene, food temperature and storage, and proper cleaning and sanitizing of foods. Help keep kids safe and food fresh during the summer months!

This course equips child nutrition program administrators and staff with the knowledge and skills needed to improve workplace culture. A positive workplace culture is crucial for the well-being of employees and the success of the organization. This course covers the definition and importance of workplace culture, plus strategies for improving workplace culture.

How can you make an impact to your budget and your menu in one change? Plan your menus according to the seasons. In this one hour session, participants will learn about growing seasons for different regions of the US, how to plan menus with built in flexibility for seasonality, and maintain CACFP meal pattern compliance.