Philadelphia School & Community IPM Partnership (PSCIP)

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Our Mission
The Pennsylvania IPM Program is a collaboration between Penn State University and the Pennsylvania Departments of Agriculture. We have established further collaborations with the Pennsylvania Departments of Education, Health and Environmental Protection and established a community IPM program in Philadelphia more than 4 years ago. This program, the Philadelphia School and Community IPM Partnership (PSCIP), links with other metro IPM efforts in Pennsylvania and is funded by Pennsylvania Dept of Ag, Pennsylvania Dept. of Education, US Environmental Protection Agency and USDA. The program offices have been hosted by the Penn State Philadelphia Outreach Center.

Over the years, the PA IPM Program personnel based at Penn State have developed a wide range of programming dedicated to education, outreach, training and implementation of reduced-risk, more effective pest management for all audiences, in all environments. PA IPM has worked extensively with teachers, school administrators, structural pest managers, environmental and civic groups, governmental agencies, various non-profits, homeowners and others on issues of IPM in a wide variety of projects and initiatives. We have successfully managed and leveraged diverse funding sources over the years. We have pre-existing mechanisms for outreach including a quarterly newsletter, extensive website and communications staff.

The Community IPM project integrates our work in schools (IPM for school grounds and IPM in the curriculum) and initiatives to bring IPM to underserved neighborhoods in several neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia. Some motivating factors for this program have been the prevalence of pest and pesticide-caused human illness, extensive pesticide misuse and lack of IPM information in urban communities.

The objective of this partnership, comprised of public/private/nonprofit organizations, is to reduce health risks associated with pests and pesticides and to make indoor and outdoor environments (public buildings and private residences) safer through the widespread adoption of IPM methods.

We have experience working in Philadelphia over the past 4 years on IPM implementation in schools, IPM in the school curriculum, development of service learning projects, implementation of IPM in row homes in low-income African American neighborhoods, formation of a broad-based partnership and the facilitation of community based collaborations.