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Wellness Training Implementation Timeline

New guidelines for the approval of Wellness training went into effect on February 1, 2025. The implementation timeline is outlined below.

ALL Wellness courses must now contain age and developmental levels as well as varying levels of knowledge (basic, intermediate and advanced) and must contain at least two hours of content to meet the new requirement, regardless of the level of training.

Wellness Training Requirement of Child Care Licensing

On September 20, 2017, SB No. 27, code NAC 432A.323 was updated with a requirement that was passed into law during the 2017 Nevada state legislative session. The new law states two or more hours of training in Wellness including childhood obesity, nutrition, and moderate or vigorous physical activity is required within 90 days of employment and each year thereafter. These requirements were adopted into Nevada’s State Child Care Licensing regulations (Adopted Regulation of the State Board of Health LCB File R092-16).

History of Wellness Requirement

As of adoption in 2017, ECE educators could take either two (2), one-hour training sessions or one (1) two-hour training session to meet the Wellness requirement, in any one of the three content areas: childhood obesity, nutrition, and physical activity. Wellness training sessions and online courses could contain one, two or three of these areas to be approved by The Nevada Registry and to be accepted by Child Care Licensing.

Evolution of Wellness Requirement 

Early 2022, The Nevada Registry was invited to participate in the Early Childhood Obesity Prevention (ECOP) Workgroup. The ECOP was interested in creating pathways for increased knowledge in the areas of childhood obesity, nutrition, and moderate or vigorous physical activity and asked The Nevada Registry to create  specific content guidelines, course objectives and trainer qualifications for Wellness courses, which included basic, intermediate and advanced levels of training content to provide more options to seasoned staff who have taken Wellness training for many years and to encourage ECE educators to increase their knowledge in these areas over time rather than continuing to complete the same training year after year.

In September 2022, with input from Child Care Licensing, and in partnership with The Nevada Registry, the ECOP created and adopted the new Wellness criteria. A training approval rubric was also created to evaluate 65 existing Nevada-Registry approved online Wellness courses.

Implementation and Notification Activities

Using the adopted rubric, staff of The Nevada Registry and members of the ECOP, specifically Community Base Instructor interns from the Integrated Health, Nutrition and Physical Activity Department at the University of Nevada Reno, evaluated each Registry-approved online Wellness course and determined whether the courses meet the new criteria and/or the modifications needed to align with the new criteria.

  • August 2024:
    All online training organizations (total of 15) with approved online Wellness courses in Nevada were notified by The Nevada Registry via email of the upcoming Wellness changes. Each was provided the new/adopted criteria and informed their courses would be evaluated against the new rubric. The Nevada Registry provided technical support and assistance as needed.
  • October 2024:
    The Nevada Registry contacted all (15) online training organizations to inform them the review/evaluation of their Wellness courses was complete. They were asked to review their currently approved Wellness courses and provided with the modifications needed to align with the new criteria.
  • November/December 2024:
  • January 2025: 
    • General information about the upcoming changes to Wellness training was posted to The Nevada Registry’s NEWS page.
    • The Nevada Registry emailed all Center Directors directly to inform them of the upcoming changes to Wellness training.
    • The Nevada Registry emailed State Child Care Licensing with an update regarding the upcoming changes to Wellness training.
    • A second message for trainers was posted to The Nevada Registry’s NEWS page with reminders/more information about upcoming changes to Wellness training approval.
    • Online training organizations who had not updated their previously approved online Wellness courses to meet the new requirements were sent an email reminder about the upcoming changes and asked to confirm whether they would be updating their Wellness courses for approval in Nevada.
    • Staff of The Nevada Registry provided a project status update to the ECOP.
    • A list of available online courses available to meet the Wellness requirement of Child Care Licensing was posted to The Nevada Registry’s NEWS page.
    • Training Calendar was updated to include a search filter for all three levels of Wellness training (basic, intermediate, advanced).
  • February 2025: 
    • New criteria went into effect on February 1, 2025.
    • All previously approved online Wellness courses not updated to meet the new criteria were removed from The Nevada Registry’s Training Calendar.

Next Steps

The Nevada Registry, in partnership with the ECOP, will solicit qualified approved trainers to develop in-person and virtual Wellness training sessions aligned with the new criteria. A qualified organization will also be identified to create a Train-the-Trainer module to increase the pool of trainers eligible to deliver Wellness training. Both efforts will help to increase professional development options for the ECE workforce in Nevada and ensure continued compliance with Child Care Licensing requirements for initial and annual Wellness training.