Mission and Values
Mission
The Institute for Children's Environmental Health (ICEH), founded in 1999, is a nonprofit educational organization working to ensure a healthy, just and sustainable future for all children. ICEH's primary mission is to foster collaborative initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate environmental exposures that can undermine the health of current and future generations.
To support this mission, ICEH is committed to:
- Creating long-term partnerships with a broad range of organizations and institutions to help build a more effective and collaborative environmental health movement;
- Translating emerging environmental health science for lay audiences and policymakers;
- Working with health-affected constituencies, in particular learning and developmental disabilities organizations, to educate their members about possible environmental links to various health problems and to nurture their capacity to advocate for policies that protect children from neurotoxicants; and
- Supporting policies and actions that are based on preventive, transparent, democratic and precautionary practices to ensure children's unique susceptibilities to environmental exposures are being addressed.
Values Statement
We believe all children deserve a healthy, just and sustainable future. Escalating rates of chronic disease and disabilities – such as asthma, childhood cancers and learning problems – prevent children from reaching their fullest potential. Because environmental pollution contributes to these illnesses, it is our responsibility to minimize children's exposures. We do this by upholding the basic precept ‘better safe than sorry,' and by promoting the development of safer products and manufacturing methods.
When we as a society had the political will to eliminate DDT and then lead from gasoline and paint, we found alternatives and created healthier, more economically vibrant communities. We now need to take even bolder steps to protect our children's health today and for generations to come. ICEH, a nationally recognized leader in the environmental health field, is fully investing our time and resources to do just that.
ICEH currently has two major national programs:
- The Learning and Developmental Disability Initiative (LDDI), a national network of almost 200 organizations and individuals interested in collaborating on research, educational and policy initiatives that reduce exposures to pollutants that may undermine healthy brain development. LDDI is a working group of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE) and members include researchers, health professionals, learning and developmental disabilities organizations and environmental health and justice groups; and
- The Partnership for Children's Health and the Environment, a growing coalition of over 270 organizations and leaders in government, academic and community-based sectors in North America, committed to sharing information and incubating new collaborative initiatives on children's environmental health issues.
In addition, ICEH regionally coordinates:
- The Collaborative on Health and the Environment – Washington (CHE-WA), a regional project of national CHE. CHE-WA is a network of over 310 researchers, health-affected groups, health care practitioners, environmental health and justice advocates, and other concerned citizens committed to reducing environmental contaminants for a healthier future. Currently, CHE-WA has three major working groups: 1) Precautionary Principle; 2) Research and Information; and 3) Environmental Justice.
ICEH is a project of the Tides Center.
Institute for Children's Environmental Health
1646 Dow Road
Freeland, WA 98249
360-331-7904
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Highlights
LDDI Publishes Policy Consensus Statement
The Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative has developed a policy consensus statement on environmental agents associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. This policy statement is based on the scientific consensus statement that LDDI published earlier this year and details specific policy initiatives to be taken to protect children from exposures that are associated with learning and developmental disabilities.
Documents relating to the statement:
For more information, please visit the LDDI home page.
Puget Sound Community Cards
We invite all Puget Sound residents to sign up for Puget Sound Community Cards at http://www.pugetsound.cc/ and choose ICEH as one of the charities you would like to benefit. Use of the card accrues dividends for the cardholder, supports local businesses and benefits up to four regional charities of the user's choice.
Toxic Toys Database
Michigan-based Ecology Center has just released new research on over 1,500 toys in collaboration with the Washington Toxics Coalition and other leading environmental health groups across the country. Parents will be able to easily check how products rank from highest to lowest in terms of lead, cadmium and other chemicals that are associated with reproductive problems, developmental and learning disabilities, hormone problems and cancer. Toys made with PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, were also tested. See www.healthytoys.org.
2008 Lecture Series in Seattle Concludes
The fifth annual environmental health lecture series themed "Seeking Solutions: Connecting Economics with Health and Environment" concluded in April. The series, sponsored by the Seattle Biotech Legacy Foundation and organized by the Institute for Children's Environmental Health, included one lecture each month January through April. National speakers lectured on principles of ecological economics, the future of the Puget Sound region, the future of energy and economics for the 21st century. Please see our Lectures page for lecture recordings and materials.
Searchable Database of Resources
ICEH is pleased to offer our visitors a searchable list of resources, including books, videos, magazines, consumer guides and websites for researchers, parents, health care providers, lawmakers, consumers and others.
Climate Change and Health
ICEH, as coordinator of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment – Washington (CHE-WA), has developed a fact sheet on climate change and health in Washington State (along with an executive summary). Please see http://washington.chenw.org. ICEH is also a partner with Seattle Climate Action Now, an effort to give everyone in Seattle the tools needed to start making a real difference at home, at work and on the road. It will bring people together across the street and across town to take action to protect the climate for all of us and for future generations.
Searchable Bulletins
Our biweekly email bulletins from the Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative are now archived and searchable on our Bulletins page. Each week, we compile news stories, announcements and upcoming events related to learning and developmental disabilities. Other bulletins from two of our projects are also posted on the websites of the Partnership for Children's Health and the Environment and the Collaborative on Health and the Environment – Washington.
Fact Sheets Published
The Research & Information Working Group of CHE-Washington has published printable Fact Sheets corresponding to the topics in the clearinghouse on health and environmental quality in Washington State that they created earlier this year. For links to the fact sheets, please visit CHE-WA's Enter Clearinghouse web page.
Journal Articles Available
LDDI was highlighted in an article in the March/April 2007 issue of Social Work Today. Read the article: Chemical Kids – Environmental Toxins and Child Development.
ICEH Executive Director and LDDI coordinator Elise Miller, along with ICEH staff member Nancy Snow, published an article in the Zero to Three journal in November 2005. "Safeguarding Our Children at Home: Reducing Exposures to Toxic Chemicals and Heavy Metals" is available for order from the Zero to Three website.
Donating Online
We are now able to accept tax-deductible online donations to support our work. Use the button below to go to the secure Groundspring site for processing credit card donations. Donations by check or cash can be made as described on our Contact Us page.
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