The GSA network is now 99% eco-healthy endorsed.  Good work to all the providers and families.   This year the eco-healthy program is expanding.  Keep reading to learn more. 

 This fall, two leading programs to protect children’s health in child care settings are merging.  Since 2005, Children’s Environmental Health Network’s (CEHN’s) Healthy Environments for Child Care Facilities and Preschools program (HECCP) and Oregon Environmental Council’s (OEC) Eco-Healthy Child Care program (EHCC) have independently protected children’s environmental health by educating child care professionals about toxic exposures and air quality issues within child care facilities. In October, the two will merge into one—the Eco-Healthy Child Care program—led by CEHN. OEC will continue to provide services to child cares in Oregon and serve as an advisor to the national program.

 CEHN has been the voice for children’s environmental health in the nation’s capital since 1992, and the organization has managed its HECCP since 2004. HECCP has run in California, Georgia, Washington, DC, and Texas, and has supported over 3,000 children. HECCP is the only program in the nation that collects on-site pre and post environmental assessment data in child care facilities. Since 2005, OEC’s EHCC program has endorsed child care facilities that perform self audits and comply with 24 out of 30 best practices for environmental health. Both programs have been tremendous successes: they currently support nearly 2,000 child care providers that, together, care for nearly 65,000 children within 48 states, Canada, and Australia. EHCC has also received the EPA’s Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award in 2006 and the 2009-2010 Childcare and School IPM Recognition Award from the IPM Institute of North America, Inc.

Merging the two prominent programs will allow for greater capacity to reach, educate and support thousands more child care professionals in preventing environmental health hazard exposure each year.

 The national Eco-Healthy Child Care program is a science-based, practical initiative that trains child-care providers to create environmentally healthy facilities and offer services that will protect children from harmful toxics and air pollution—and then helps them implement changes that will help them realize this goal. When a provider commits to following the program’s best-practices techniques, which are proven to reduce children’s toxic exposure and improve indoor air quality, EHCC endorses the provider—and then promotes the endorsed facilities to parents to simultaneously reward our participants and help educate parents about environmental health issues.

 EHCC’s goal is to prevent and reduce adverse health effects from exposure to pesticides, household chemicals, lead, mercury, art supplies, treated playground equipment, furniture and carpets, radon, mold and mildew, plastics and poor indoor air quality in child care facilities across the nation, and we target on-the-ground child care providers, administrators, child care trainers, and child care licensing staff.

 Since its inception, EHCC has conducted targeted expansion to nine states, offering extensive training and outreach to child care professionals in California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Maine Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, and Washington. This year, the program will target six additional states, including Idaho and Vermont. EHCC intends to expand into four to six additional states a year over the next four years. The EHCC national board of advisors ensures that EHCC remains relevant to all child-care professionals as the program grows. Any child care provider in the United States can access EHCC’s free on-line resources, including the self-audit checklist and informational fact sheets, information about how to get endorsed, and a list of whoserves on our national advisory board, at www.oeconline.org/ehcc

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