Children’s Environmental Health – The Regional Environmental Health Specialists of Children’s Environmental Health will be conducting a virtual regional educational meeting on February 7, 2023 from 8:45 am to 3:30 pm.

All CCHCs are strongly encouraged to attend as new child care sanitation rules will be discussed! The agenda is included below.

AGENDA 

• 8:45 What’s New for Children’s Env Health 2023 
• 9:30 Lead Program Update: ARPA Funding & School Water Testing 
• 11:15 Update: Child Care Regulations from Licensing Agency 
• 12:00 Lunch 
• 1:00 Lead Samples Sent to State Lab Do’s & Don’ts 
• 1:45 Break 
• 2:00 Summary Update and What’s Next for Lead Water Testing  in Child Occupied Facilities / RTI International 
• 2:45 Lead Investigations: County & State Responsibilities 
• 3:30 Questions/Adjourn 

Below is the information to join on the day of the event. We encourage all CCHCs to add this event to your calendar!

Microsoft Teams Meeting  

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Meeting ID: 240 107 299 273
Passcode: rd5m4h

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+1 984-204-1487,,486798403#   United States, Raleigh

Phone Conference ID: 486 798 403#

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Protect children from exposure to lead in metal and plastic toys, especially imported toys, antique toys, and toy jewelry.

Many children get toys and toy jewelry as gifts during the holiday season. Some toys, especially imported toys, antique toys, and toy jewelry, may contain lead. Although lead is invisible to the naked eye and has no smell, exposure to lead can seriously harm a child’s health.

Young children tend to put their hands, toys, or other objects―which may be made of lead or contaminated with lead or lead dust―into their mouths. If you have a small child in your household, make sure the child does not have access to toys, jewelry, or other items that may contain lead.

Read more from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

 

 

With funding from The JPB Foundation, the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN), the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC), and the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) has launched the Lead-Safe Toolkit for Home-Based Child Care.

There is no safe level of lead for children. Adverse health effects, including IQ deficits and learning and behavioral problems, occur at low levels of exposure to often invisible sources of lead.

The Lead-Safe Toolkit offers a variety of resources to help home-based providers reduce lead hazards in their child care homes. Toolkit contents include:

• Poster for display in family child care home.
• List of science-based, user-friendly lead prevention resources.
• Lead prevention policies and worksheets, with easy-to-follow steps for finding out if lead hazards exist in the home and what to do to reduce any exposures.

View full press release!

Also, Eco-Healthy Child Care® helps early childhood learning environments to be as healthy, safe and green as possible by reducing children’s exposure to toxic chemicals. Check out their factsheet on lead!

More than 230,000 babies and young children attend licensed child care centers in North Carolina. New rules adopted by the NC Commission for Public Health will ensure that all of those children are drinking water that is free from hazardous lead contamination.

This is a big win for young children in our state. One of the simplest things we can do to promote children’s healthy brain development is to make sure their drinking water is free from lead. Kudos to the NC Division of Public Health for their leadership on this important issue.

Read more at NC Child and NC Health News.