More than half of all children in Canada aged six months to five years spend the majority of their waking hours in child care settings. The Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE) has teamed up with two leading public health inspector organizations to help make those environments safer and healthier for kids.
CPCHE’s newest publication, Advancing Environmental Health in Child Care Settings: A Checklist for Child Care Practitioners and Public Health Inspectors, is designed to assist child care practitioners and public health inspectors in identifying practical steps to reduce potentially harmful exposures to toxic chemicals and pollutants in child care settings.
This user-friendly checklist, supplemented by supporting information and resources, addresses environmental health issues in a variety of typical indoor and outdoor settings. The ideas and suggestions included in the resource – ranging from choosing safer cleaning products and toys to introducing a scent-free policy or composting program – can help a child care centre go beyond regulatory requirements to create healthier indoor and outdoor environments for the children in their care.
The document is bound in a printed three-ring binder to facilitate its ongoing use and adaptation by child care staff and the public health inspectors who work with them.
Advancing Environmental Health in Child Care Settings: A Checklist for Child Care Practitioners and Public Health Inspectors is available for free download from the CPCHE website or for purchase from CPCHE (download order form).
The Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment is a multi-sectoral collaboration of twelve organizations with expertise in issues related to the environment, children, clinical and public health. CPCHE partners have been working together since 2001 to protect children’s health from environmental pollutants and toxic chemicals by moving children’s environmental health issues into the minds of decision-makers, service providers, practitioners, parents and the public.
This resource was developed by CPCHE in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Public Health Inspectors – Ontario Branch (CIPHI-ON) and the Association of Supervisors of Public Health Inspectors of Ontario (ASPHIO), with funding provided by the Ontario Trillium Foundation via the Ontario Public Health Association, the lead CPCHE partner for this initiative.
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