Child and Adult Care Food Programs Resources

List of Resources for CACFP Here

This series of fact sheets provides nutrition related guidance for providers of adult day care. Information includes CACFP meal patterns for adults, nutrition needs, feeding techniques, and food safety. Published 2006.

To continue meeting the needs of CACFP participants, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) called for the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Services (USDA FNS) to review and revise the CACFP meal pattern requirements to better align with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and to address the current health status of children and adults. Following this call to action, USDA published the updated meal pattern requirements on April 25, 2016.

Through USDA FNS guidance and collaboration, ICN developed the CACFP Meal Pattern Requirements training materials. This webpage features training materials and additional resources for implementing the updated meal pattern requirements.

Lessons describe how child care centers and family day care home providers can participate in the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Lessons are specifically written for the child care center and for the family day care home, highlighting the differences between the two, and describing the benefits of the program.

These colorful 8.5″ x 11″ mini-posters can be used as helpful reminders and on-the-spot training for child care centers and family day care homes. Published 2009.

Colorful 8 ½” x 11″ mini-posters for use in child care centers. English and Spanish versions available. Topics include bottle safety, hand washing, cross contamination, grocery shopping tips, safe handling of infant formula, bottle feeding, transporting food the safe way, safe temperature for foods, and meat, poultry, and fish safety. Revised March 29, 2018.

amily Child Care Professionals are essential to early childhood education. Many young children and their families rely on their skills and expertise for providing the best care and educational services in a home-style environment. In addition, they rely on family child care providers to foster healthy environments promoting overall health and wellness in child care. Understanding this, Family Child Care FUNdamentals (FCCF), a research-based training, was developed to assist providers with those skills and resources for meeting the needs of young children.

Family Child Care FUNdamentals can be taught in one-hour intervals or in a seven-hour workshop. The resource includes an Instructor’s Manual, Participant’s Workbook, and PowerPoint presentation. Published 2014. ET123-14.

Food Purchasing for Child Care is a key resource for training child care professionals on cost-efficient methods for purchasing food. This resource reflects good purchasing practices and current federal regulations, and is intended as an overview for child care professionals.

Topics include planning menus, developing an organized grocery list, estimating the amount of foods to purchase, selecting a qualified vendor, and placing orders. The resource includes an Instructor’s Manual, Participant’s Workbook, and PowerPoint® presentations. Published 2014.

Food Safety in Child Care, formerly known as Serving Safe Food in Child Care, is based on the four principles of the Fight BAC© program: Clean, Separate, Cook, and Cool. Developed specifically for child care providers in the CACFP environment, it provides four hours of face-to-face food safety training for foodservice employees in child care.

The Food Safety in Child Care online course is a recently revamped version of Serving Safe Food in Child Care. It focuses on applying the four key concepts of the USDA Fight Bac® program: clean, separate, cook, and chill into child care programs. 4 hours. Look for it on the Child Care tab of the ICN Online Course Catalog.

Introduction to Happy Mealtimes in Child Care Settings is a comprehensive four-hour training resource, designed to provide child care professionals with best practices for creating positive and safe mealtime environments for young children. This training resource provides key strategies for helping young children to develop healthy eating habits from the start by focusing on the feeding relationship between adult caregivers and young children.

This training features four lessons:

Lesson 1: Implement Schedules and Routines
Lesson 2: Serve Meals Family-Style
Lesson 3: Implement Food Safety Practices
Lesson 4: Focus on Healthy Habits

Communication and training resources that identify tools needed to understand the risks associated with norovirus and prevention strategies in school and child care nutrition program settings.

Your Content Goes Here
Return to Resource A-Z Index

Search ICN Resources

All Categories