Healthy Child Care Information for Government Agencies
Replace mercury thermometers with mercury-free fever thermometers.
Federal, State, Tribal and Local Agencies
Resources to help you learn about the most up-to-date research on child care environmental health issues, identify key state and regional healthy child care organizations for partnerships, and see how other states are addressing child care environmental health issues.
On this page:
- Advancing Environmental Health in Child Care Settings: A Checklist for Child Care Practitioners and Public Health Inspectors (PDF) (70 pp, 1.3 MB), from the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment.
- Caring for our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards; Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs (PDF) (608 pp, 46.6 MB), from the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education.
- Child Care in America: 2010 State Fact Sheets (PDF) (120 pp, 1.5 MB), from the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.
- UC Berkeley Center for Children's Environmental Health Research
- Children at Risk: How toxic chemicals threaten Oregon's children and what we can do about it (PDF) (43 pp, 772K), from the Oregon Environmental Council.
- Asthma: Publications and Resources, EPA publications for child care providers, health care professionals and kids.
- Lead Poisoning Prevention in Family Childcare Facilities (PDF) (31 pp, 904K), from Health Resources in Action.
From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
- Quick facts for School Nurses on Mercury (English and Spanish) (PDF) (4 pp, 769K).
- Children's Exposure to Elemental Mercury: a National Review of Exposure Events (PDF) (65pp, 1.2 MB).
- Investigating Mercury Exposure at a Day Care Center (PDF) (1 pg, 864K).
Pesticides/Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
- EPA Pesticides in Child Care Initiative: 2010 Staten Island Pilot Project Report (17 pp, 788K)
- Pest Management and Pesticide Use in California Child Care Centers (PDF) (43pp, 6.2 MB), from the University of California, Berkeley.
- Children's Total Exposure to Persistent Pesticides and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants (CTEPP) - this study collected data on pesticide residue exposures in both family day care and child care centers.
Training
April, 2012 EPA Webinar on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Child Care Settings
Note
: Option 2 requires registration on a non-EPA site, and may require downloading a help file to replay the audio-visual training session. If the site does not prompt you for the helper file (codec), then install the helper codec, and click on the training session link again.
IPM training for child care providers in 10 modules:
- Module 1 - Introduction (PDF, 34 pp, 1645 K)
- Module 2 - for Child Care Center Directors (PDF, 32 pp, 833 K)
- Module 3 - for Child Care Center Maintenance Staff (PDF, 33 pp, 2429 K)
- Module 4 - for Child Care Center Teachers and Caregivers (PDF, 31 pp, 1776 K)
- Module 5 - Mice and Rats (PDF, 58 pp, 12.9 Mb)
- Module 6 - Cockroaches (PDF, 46 pp, 4.4 Mb)
- Module 7 - Bed Bugs (PDF, 42 pp, 3.8 Mb)
- Module 8 - Flies (PDF, 16 pp, 1219 K)
- Module 9 - Ants (PDF, 24 pp, 2.4 Mb)
- Module 10 - Head Lice (PDF, 16 pp, 705 K)
Additional training resources:
- Training Curricula, from the California Childcare Health Program. Includes curriculum for child care health consultants and advocates, lead poisoning prevention, asthma, integrated pest management, and more.
- Lead Poisoning Prevention Curriculum for Pre-school Children and their Parents (PDF) (90 pp, 411K), teacher's guide from the New York State Department of Health.