Early Childcare Menu Support

Infancy and early childhood is an important time for focusing on nutrition and obesity prevention strategies, as food preferences and eating habits are established during this time and are often retained into adulthood. The early childhood education and care setting provides a wonderful opportunity to introduce children to a wide range of nourishing foods and to limit their intake of discretionary foods.

Central Coast Local Health District’s Nutrition Service works with Central Coast Health Promotion Service to support our local early childhood services to ensure their menus meet the nutritional needs of the children in their care. We offer menu planning resources, menu review services, and training opportunities. We also provide regular, ongoing support through our Cooks Network meetings, Menu Matters e-newsletter, Ask the Dietitian service and local childcare recipe bank.

Are you new to menu planning in the early childcare setting? Do you want a refresher on how to plan nourishing menus for early childcare? Are you wanting to meet Munch & Move practices in relation to cook training?

Then register for our Early Childcare Healthy Menu Planning Essentials course.

What is it?

The course is a self-paced online course for cooks and other interested early childcare service staff. The interactive modules can be done on smartphones, tablets or computer and range in length from 10 to 30 mins.

What do participants say?

“Loved how interactive it was and better than sitting in a workshop.”

“Easy, informative, enjoyable.”

You can also access additional healthy menu planning training courses on subjects such as identifying picky eaters and managing food allergies in the kitchen.