Eco-Healthy Child Care Goes National
In 2005, the Oregon Environmental Council (OEC) created the Eco-Healthy Child Care (EHCC) program. EHCC is a free, voluntary recognition program available to child care providers - both center-based and FCCs. The goal of the program is to educate and empower child care providers to reduce environmental toxins in their child care facilities while encouraging parents to choose ‘eco-healthy.’ Currently, this program includes over 530 qualified facilities throughout the nation that keep over 17,800 children safe and healthy.
The EHCC program has been so successful that in 2007 OEC received a generous grant from the Cedar Tree Foundation to expand this first-of-its-kind program nationally.
The EHCC program convened executives and directors from both the child care sector and the environmental health sector to serve on the EHCC national advisory committee. The national advisory committee works to effectively expand the program nationally; to ensure that the EHCC content is accurate, accessible, and up-to-date; and to help expand awareness of the EHCC program to child care providers throughout the country. There has been overwhelming interest from prominent national organizations, which means the Eco-Healthy Child Care expansion is off to a fantastic and energizing start!
Although EHCC will initially focus training and outreach efforts in seven pilot states (CA, CO, FL, MA, ME, NC and WA), child care providers throughout the United States are encouraged to become endorsed as Eco-Healthy!
EHCC works to improve children’s environmental health because every day, new information tells us that environmental hazards, like chemicals in cleaning products and weed killers, are too risky for children. Children are especially sensitive to chemicals because their organ and immune systems are still developing, they eat and breathe more pound for pound than adults, and their natural habits (e.g. crawling on the floor and putting their hands in their mouths) increase exposure to toxics.
For these reasons providing an environmentally-healthy, low toxic, setting is particularly important in the places, such as schools and childcare facilities, where many children spend the majority of their time.
Members of the national advisory committee from the child care sector include: the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies; the National Association for the Education of Young Children; the National Head Start Association; the US General Services Administration; the American Academy of Pediatrics; the National Child Care Association; the National Association for Child Care Professionals; the National Association for Family Child Care; the Child Care Law Center; and Childrens’ Creative Learning Center.
Members from the Environmental Health sector include: the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN); the Institute for Children’s Environmental Health (ICEH); the Institute of Neurotoxicology and Neurological Disorders (INND); the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN); and Healthy Child Healthy World (HCHW). The committee also includes representatives from the first seven states that will be piloting the EHCC program – California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Main, North Carolina and Washington.
