Asthma-Friendly Childcare

By providing evaluation tools and training to childcare facilities, Asthma-Friendly Childcare Project strives to prevent unnecessary asthma emergencies in the daycare setting by increasing the number of asthma-friendly childcare facilities.

Asthma-Friendly Childcare Project is funded in part by a grant from the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund of The Chicago Community Trust.

A childcare facility is asthma-friendly if the facility:

is free of tobacco smoke at all times
has staff that have been well-trained in asthma management
uses "green" cleaning products
takes simple steps to eliminate common asthma triggers
implements asthma action plans for children under its care who have asthma

Asthma-friendly checklist for childcare facilities

To evaluate a childcare facility's level of asthma friendliness, Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago has developed an easy-to-use checklist in both English and Spanish.

Asthma management training for childcare facility staff

Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago offers online and hands-on asthma management trainings for childcare facility staff. Attendees of these trainings will:

learn how to recognize asthma
know what to do once asthma starts
understand asthma medications
know how to better administer asthma medications
know what is needed to care for a child with asthma
be able to recognize and eliminate asthma triggers

Asthma management training online

An online version of our Asthma Management training for caregivers is available here. Click the screen image below to get started! Part 1 covers "What is Asthma?" and Part 2 focuses on "How to Manage Asthma."