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Racial Healing and Environmental Justice

kristiet_a0o04rjz on January 11, 2021

Racial Healing and Environmental Justice

Children from low-income communities and communities of color often have greater risk of exposures to pollution, higher levels of contaminants in their bodies, and more illness or disability such as asthma and learning disabilities. These high risk children are also experiencing the direct and indirect impacts of climate change the most and hardest.

Structural racism has led to the disparate impact of hazardous waste sites, polluting facilities and poor quality housing stock being located in or near neighborhoods with high concentrations of Black and brown people and economically disadvantaged populations.

The COVID-19 pandemic points a spotlight on the impact systemic racism has had on Black and brown communities’ health–leading to poorer health outcomes and increased mortality.

The National Day of Racial Healing which occurs every year on the Tuesday following Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time for action on #HowWeHeal from the impacts of racism. It is hosted by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and was created with the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation community partners. Racial healing is at the core of racial equity. The National Day of Racial Healing provides an opportunity for ALL communities to come together to create a more just world.

The effects of racism are evident in the health, economic and environmental policies all around us and the places in which we live, learn, work and play. People experience these effects when they take their children to child care or school, when they try to rent or buy a home in a safe and non-polluting neighborhood, and when they deal with the impacts of increased flooding, a rising heat index, and contaminated water and soil from climate change.

The home-based Flores Family Child Care facility is located in East Los Angeles, a community made up of primarily Latinx families with over 26% of the population living below the federal poverty line. Many families with young children in East L.A. live in older and often over‐crowded housing, which is often associated with elevated environmental health risks to children. Numerous major freeways also surround the community, which pollute the air. Compared to Los Angeles County, East L.A. is disproportionately affected by health problems linked to the environment including childhood asthma.

Between 2017 and 2019, Flores Family Child Care noticed how the majority of children in their care were frequently ill. In May 2019, a University of Southern California study found significantly elevated levels of lead in the teeth of children living in five L.A. neighborhoods including Flores’s. Lead is a known neurotoxicant, and particularly harmful to children and babies. Also located in this area, Exide Technologies’ battery recycling plant and its predecessors emitted lead and other dangerous pollutants for decades. These harmful emissions have left homes, apartments, schools, parks and child care facilities in the local area with dangerously high levels of lead contaminated soil. Fortunately, Flores Family Child Care was able to have the lead removed from their facility’s’s grounds. Their facility is also an Eco-Healthy Child Care® endorsed home-based child care. They protect children from environmental health risks by preventing vehicles from idling in the parking area as well as in pick-up and drop-off locations, thus decreasing exposure to air pollutants. Flores Family Child Care improves their indoor air quality by using furniture with fewer harmful chemicals and low-volatile organic compound paint on the facility’s walls.

We applaud child care providers like Flores Family Child Care who are protecting children and staff from environmental hazards in early learning settings. However, to bring about environmental justice we need our housing, education, and health systems, among others, to eliminate indoor and outdoor air pollution and climate risks.

East L.A. is just one example of how communities across the U.S. have suffered and continue to suffer the health effects of systemic racism. Racial healing recognizes the need to tell the truth about past wrongs created by individual and systemic racism and address the present impacts. It can build authentic relationships that bridge divides created by real and perceived differences. It is essential to pursue racial healing prior to making change in a community and to truly work toward the protection of all children.

Take action and begin the racial healing conversation in your community this year!

Moving the Child Care Field Forward-Updated Environmental Health Standards

kristiet_a0o04rjz on December 8, 2020

Moving the Child Care Field Forward-Updated Environmental Health Standards

By Kathy Attar, Engagement Manager, Eco-Healthy Child Care®

BIG NEWS!!! The Association for Early Learning Leaders (AELL) has recently released updated accreditation standards for center-based child care providers. These new standards are now more inclusive of children’s environmental health.

The Eco-Healthy Child Care® program worked with AELL to ensure environmental health best practices were included in their newly updated standards. For example, AELL recommends monitoring indoor air quality by: ensuring adequate ventilation is maintained by using an HVAC system and/or opening screened windows; avoiding conditions that lead to excess moisture; and not using aerosols, among other best practices. Protecting children from outdoor air pollution can be done by checking the Air Quality Index and instituting an anti-idling policy, in addition to other strategies.

A primary AELL goal is to ensure high quality child care programs for young children. One way they do this is by accrediting center-based facilities. Their updated accreditation standards reflect current research and evidence-based practices within the early learning field. For example, including information and strategies to reduce air pollution in order to protect children’s health.

All national child care accreditation standards are voluntary strategies for improving the quality of child care. There currently are no mandated national regulations related to environmental health in child care facilities. Some states require child care facilities to test for lead in water and paint, or require facilities to test for radon, but more often than not, environmental health is not comprehensively addressed in child care licensing requirements.

EHCC’s work to incorporate environmental health best practices within national child care accreditation–AELL’s and the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s— as well as within the National Center for Healthy and Safety in Child Care and Early Education’s (NRC) Caring for Our Children’s health and safety standards is a path towards strengthening local child care licensing. When local licensing agencies are seeking to update regulations they often look to accreditation and NRC’s Caring for Our Children’s health and safety standards for model practices that have been agreed upon by subject matter experts.

High quality child care must include considerations for the health and safety of the children and staff–environmental health is a key part in ensuring our children and the people who care for them are free of exposures to potential environmental pollutants.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for comprehensive and safer strategies to address cleaning, disinfecting and indoor air quality in child care. Many of Eco-Healthy Child Care® ‘s cleaning and disinfecting best practices found on our checklist align with the Center’s Disease Control’s COVID-19 best practices for keeping child care facilities safe during the pandemic. We have also developed NEW user-friendly and science based COVID-19 fact sheets for child care professionals on cleaning, disinfecting and indoor air quality (available in both English and Spanish).

Are you a child care provider looking to create a child care environment free of environmental hazards such as: BPA, pesticides or lead? Get Eco-Healthy Child Care® Endorsed!

As an Eco-Healthy Child Care® endorsed provider you will create and maintain a child care facility that is healthy and safe by reducing children’s exposure to environmental hazards like lead in paint and water, unsafe plastics and toxic chemicals found in cleaning supplies.

Celebrating 48 Years of the Clean Water Act

kristiet_a0o04rjz on October 22, 2020

Celebrating 48 Years of the Clean Water Act

October 18th marked the 48th anniversary of the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act was a long-awaited reaction to the irresponsible dumping of pollution into our waterways. When the Act was passed, nearly two-thirds of the country’s lakes, rivers and coastal waters had become unsafe, polluted with untreated sewage, oil, trash, chemicals, and other industrial waste.

As we celebrate this anniversary, it is also a rallying call to protect the progress made so far, and to hold our elected officials accountable. Even today, 39% of American rivers, 45% of our lakes, and 51% of the estuaries monitored in the US are contaminated. In fact, the current administration has continued to work relentlessly to undermine the protections provided by the Clean Water Act for the past 48 years. They have rolled back vital safeguards and given corporate polluters access to wage an assault on our public health and safety.

Clean water is fundamental to public health. This year, in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, clean water has become even more central to protecting our nation’s health. Just as black and brown communities have borne the brunt of COVID-19, low income communities and communities of color are often disproportionately impacted by polluted water. These communities are also the ones most immediately impacted by climate change, which poses an increasing threat to our water sources.

Water equity, just like health equity, matters. The ability to access safe water for drinking, cleaning, cooking, and enjoying is absolutely necessary to cultivate happy, healthy communities, where all are able to thrive and reach their full potential. Access to clean water is a fundamental right that every child in this country should be afforded. Our leaders have a moral obligation to protect and uphold this right. We cannot hope to accomplish justice for all if we do not protect safeguards for the water on which our communities and our children depend, like the Clean Water Act.

Children are especially vulnerable to environmental hazards like water pollution. Their bodies are still developing, so a smaller dose of a pollutant can have a bigger impact than on an adult and can have long-lasting physical and mental impacts on a child’s life course. For instance, childhood lead exposure from polluted water sources can damage a child’s brain and nervous system, slow their growth and development, and cause learning and behavior problems and lowered IQ.

Much like our water sources, our children are some of our most valuable resources, yet their health and that of their families and communities have not been at the forefront of our nation’s policies and programs. The Children’s Environmental Health Network’s 2020 Voter Guide helps engaged citizens assess their local, state, and federal candidates’ commitment to five key issues: Children’s Health and Equity, Climate Action, Clean Air, Clean Water, and Toxic-free Environments and Products.

The 2020 elections offer an opportunity to reset our national, state, and local priorities and to put children’s health and their environment at the center of decision-making, including prioritizing clean water for all. Please use this resource as you go to the polls this fall, and share it widely, especially with those who may not be familiar with water quality and children’s environmental health issues. Let’s celebrate the Clean Water Act’s anniversary by uniting at the polls for equity, and a clean and healthy environment for ALL children!

Racial Healing and Environmental Justice

Moving the Child Care Field Forward-Updated Environmental Health Standards

Celebrating 48 Years of the Clean Water Act

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