Profile

Welcome to Healthy Steps in ECEC

Healthy Steps in ECEC is a web-based tool to designed to help centre-based and Family Day Care Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services create healthy environments for children. Healthy Steps in ECEC will be used to help you put in place the Tiny Bites program.

Tiny Bites

Helping feed infants in care & at home

The Tiny Bites program supports parents, carers, and Early Childcare (ECEC) services in implementing the Australian Infant Feeding Guidelines and recommended infant feeding practices. This program is a collaboration between Deakin University and the Good for Kids team, and is currently being run as a research trial in the Hunter New England region. Healthy Steps is a web-based tool to support ECEC services in meeting infant feeding practices and policy.

What are the benefits of Tiny Bites?

Tiny Bites provides services with the tools and knowledge to:

  • Promote healthy eating, growth and development of children aged 0-2 years, and supporting them to meet their nutrient requirements
  • Support children to develop a healthy relationship with food and reduce the risk of “fussy eating”
  • Support communication with families regarding breastfeeding, infant nutrition, and responsive feeding
  • Implement responsive feeding practices during feeds and mealtimes
  • Access a wide range of supporting resources for both educators and families
  • Align infant feeding policies and procedures with the National Quality Standards (NQS) and Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF).

Implementing Tiny Bites at Your Service

Self-Assessments

Completing the Tiny Bites self-assessment enables your service to check how you are going with meeting a range of infant feeding practices. The self-assessment provides you with instant feedback, showing you which practices your service is doing well, and others where practices could be enhanced.
Complete Self-Assessment >

Action Planning

Create an action plan for infant practices recommended as part of the Tiny Bites program. Access your Action Plan via the Tiny Bites survey queue.

Resources

Healthy Steps in ECEC provides a library of resources to help your service reach their goals for the Tiny Bites program.
Learn More >

Professional Development

A series of webinar modules on infant feeding, responsive feeding, and healthy conversations with families.
Learn more >

Contact Us:

For any questions about the Tiny Bites program, get in touch with the team at: hnelhd-pophealthgfkresearch@health.nsw.gov.au