CLEVELAND — A new Cleveland Lead Safe Child Care Pilot Program, working with the Starting Point referral agency and the city Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition, is hoping to initially help some 30 Cleveland day care locations reduce their lead poisoning risk.
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The program, funded by the Cleveland Clinic, is open to more than 300 eligible Cleveland daycare locations built before 1978, assisting them in three phases with the recruitment of EPA-certified Lead Safe workers who will identify and remediate lead hazards via renovation, repair, and painting projects, as well as support to participating child care providers and their families, including blood lead level testing and developmental screening.
Cleveland Council President Blaine Griffin, who is a member of the Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition, told News 5 that he expects the pilot program to have a big impact.
“We knew when we started having this conversation around lead safe certifications that daycare’s were going to be a critical part," Griffin said. “A lot of children spend most of their time outside of their home in day cares, and a lot of these day cares are in older buildings as well, so it was essential to work with somebody like Starting Point.”
Griffin is hoping the program will expand to include more opportunities to lead test children.
“The only thing that I hope that they add to that is a rigorous testing schedule, because we have to do a better job of making sure that we test these children that are in these daycare centers,” Griffin said. “I really hope that we can build a partnership with Medicaid to make it easier to test, to make sure that the facilities are all in one place, so that you don’t have to go to one place for your doctors appointment and go to another place to get tested.”
Joan Hamm, executive director of Children First of Cleveland: Day Care, applauded the city, Cleveland Clinic and Starting Point for launching the program. Hamm had her downtown day care completely renovated in 2018 to address any potential environmental risks from lead paint and lead pipes.
“We had a checklist of asbestos and lead because we are in an older building, and so we went through and ensured that all of those were mediated," Hamm said. “I’m just so thankful that Starting Point and the City of Cleveland is going to give people opportunities to mitigate that.”
Anyone interested in the new Cleveland Lead Safe Child Care Pilot Program can find information on the Starting Point and Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition web pages.
Meanwhile, Hamm, who is also a board member of the Ohio Association of Childcare Providers, is hopeful the new program will make a difference because she's seen the devastating impact of childhood lead poisoning firsthand.
“I look at the cognitive and neurological piece of that, and lead has such an impact on that child, it gives them learning disabilities, they have a hard time managing their behaviors, it’s just not fair," Hamm said. “It's just heartbreaking because it was preventable, and always say we failed this child."
News 5 is committed to following through on this developing story and the ongoing battle to stop childhood lead poisoning.
