EPA-sponsored
Webinar: Green Cleaning, Sanitizing, and Disinfecting in Early Care and Education (ECE) Settings
Child
care professionals know how important regular cleaning is for maintaining
attractive and healthful conditions in early learning environments. Cleaning
has obvious aesthetic benefits. But it also has health benefits since cleaning,
along with sanitizing and disinfecting, removes dust, allergens, toxic
contaminants and infectious agents.
What
you may not realize is that some cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting products
pose significant health and environmental concerns and that some chemicals in
these products are associated with eye, skin, and respiratory irritation, as
well as other health issues. Concentrated forms of some commercial cleaning products
are classified as hazardous, creating potential handling, storage, and disposal
issues for users and exposure risk for children and staff.
Small
children are particularly vulnerable to health effects from exposure to chemicals
in cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting products because of their size, stage
of development and behaviors. But there are easy steps you can take to
maintain a clean, sanitary and healthy child care while at the same time reducing
exposure to harmful chemicals.
Please
join us for a webinar on Green Cleaning, Sanitizing, and Disinfecting in
Early Care and Education Settings on July 23 at 1:00 - 2:30 Eastern.
Reserve your spot now by visiting: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/175606600
so you can learn
how to implement a green cleaning program in your child care facility.
This
webinar is sponsored by EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection and
features three national experts who will provide information you can use to
institute a green cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting program in early care
and education centers you manage or oversee.
The
panel discussion will include results of research on exposure to chemicals in child
care settings and how these exposures can affect the health of staff and
children. It will also provide practical tips for instituting a green
cleaning program in your ECE center drawing upon information contained in the soon-to-be
released “Cleaning, Sanitizing, and Disinfecting: A Toolkit for Early
Care and Education” co-authored by the speakers. The Toolkit
will be available online this summer at:
Speakers:
Carol
Westinghouse:
President of Informed Green Solutions and a nationally recognized specialist in
green cleaning. Ms. Westinghouse developed and manages a Cleaning
for Health program that has provided technical assistance to hundreds of
schools across New England as well as early care and education centers,
colleges and universities, health care facilities, state agencies and businesses.
She has served as an advisor and consultant for numerous projects relating to
green cleaning, including projects for the States of Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut,
Maine and Rhode Island. She has authored and co-authored numerous fact
sheets and other guidance documents on green cleaning for schools and early
care and education programs.
Vickie
Leonard: Dr.
Leonard is a nurse practitioner and is also a child care health consultant with
a particular interest in environmental health in ECE. She worked for the
California Childcare Health Program for 5 years until funding was cut in 2010.
While at CCHP, Dr. Leonard developed the first Toolkit, Integrated Pest
Management: A Toolkit for Early Care and Education. She now works for the
University of California, San Francisco’s Institute on Health and Aging where
she is the lead author of the new Green Cleaning, Sanitizing, and
Disinfecting Toolkit for Early Care and Education.
Asa
Bradman:
Dr. Bradman is an environmental health scientist who focuses on exposures to pregnant
women and children. He is a co-founder of the Center for Environmental Research
and Children’s Health (CERCH) at the University of California’s Berkeley campus
and helps direct biomonitoring and exposure studies as part of the CHAMACOS
partnership in the Salinas Valley, California. He leads the CERCH initiative to
improve environmental health in California child care facilities. He was
appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the Scientific Guidance Panel for the
California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program and is a scientific
advisor to the National Center for Healthy Homes, the California Child Care Health
Program, the Children's Environmental Health Network, and the US EPA Pesticide
Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC)/21st Century Toxicology workgroup.
