THE THRESHOLD
April 2000
At Home with the National Office
Hot off the press!!!! I'm pleased to share with you Help Yourself to a Healthy Home:
Protect Your Children's Health, the latest publication from the Home*A*Syst national
office. At this writing, a copy is in the mail to all Farm*A*Syst and Home*A*Syst state
coordinators. This guidebook and web resource was prepared with support from the United States
Department of Housing and Urban Development and USDA Cooperative State Research Education and
Extension Service as part of their Healthy Homes Initiative.
What is Help Yourself to a Healthy Home? It is a new version of Home*A*Syst that
focuses specifically on children's health risks in five areas:
- Indoor Air Quality
- Pesticides
- Drinking Water Quality
- Lead
- Hazardous Household Products
The original chapters have been modified with help from the authors, and the drinking water
chapter now covers public and private water supplies. Each chapter of the new publication is a
shorter and simpler version of the original. For example, there are questions to help an
individual evaluate risk, but not assessment tables. The language is now at a sixth-grade
reading level, to be suitable for individuals with lower literacy. The tool will be available
to Home*A*Syst state coordinators--you'll be able to use it just as you do the Home*A*Syst
national publication. You may download it from the links above. And registrants of the Healthy
Homes Satellite Conference will be sent a copy. Stay tuned!
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FOCUS ON THE STATES
Alaska Home Stewardship: Reaching Out, Way Out, in the Great Land
Alaska is BIG:
- Largest state in the US at 586,412 square miles
- Tallest mountain in North America -- Mount McKinley, at 20,320 feet
- Third longest river in the US next to the Mississippi and Missouri -- the Yukon at 1,875
miles in Alaska; 2,298 total miles.
You get the idea. And in Alaska, they do things in a BIG way. Witness the state's Home*A*Syst
program, most recently coordinated by Malcolm Ford.
Living in the Mat-Su
Based on the national Home*A*Syst model, Alaska Home Stewardship developed a punchy, confidential,
self-assessment program and guide to promote family awareness concerning recognized pollution and
health risks in the Matanuska/Susitna Valley. Living in the Mat-Su combines an assortment of original
catchy cartoons and poetry, packaging material in an information rich, but interesting read. Drawings
such as "Living in a Bathtub," poetry -- "Well Tested," by Dr. Sluice, and promotion lines such as
"Hire a Lawyer, the kids are going to sue!" proved popular.
Alaska Native Village Public Outreach Project
This project, funded by a competitive USDA/CSREES Water Quality Grant, worked with a steering
committee to identify major water quality and indoor health issues facing Alaska Native Villages, and
then hired artist Terry Joesy to illustrate them.
Two paintings, titled "It's all the same water," and "It's all the same air," form a poster
accompanied by a brochure offering practical information, plus toll-free numbers for those seeking
additional assistance.
It's all the same water
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It's all the same air
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Master Watershed Steward Program
In the coming year Alaska Home Stewardship may share a "single shingle" with fellow Extension
Water Quality partner, the Master Watershed Steward Program. This program recently graduated its
largest group ever of Master Watershed Stewards with 18 adult volunteers. The ten-week, thirty-hour,
EPA-funded class provides a balance of outdoor field trips such as a coastal watershed walk and salmon
habitat studies and classroom presentations on topics such as spruce bark beetle effects on watersheds
and how the political process affects water quality in Alaska.
To date, 66 Master Watershed Stewards have completed the course and have contributed 3,766 hours on
watershed projects. The most popular volunteer project is the Citizen Environmental Monitoring Program
in which graduates attend a twenty-hour training on how to collect physical, chemical and biological
data on stream sites in south central Alaska. In addition to providing an educational opportunity,
this project provides baseline data for streams where none may have existed before.
Alaska Home Stewardship and Master Watershed Steward Program are programs funded by Alaska
Department of Environmental Conservation 319 grant funds.
| For more information about the individual programs contact:
|
| Alaska Home Stewardship |
Master Watershed Steward Program |
| Malcolm Ford |
Barbara Wild |
| Phone: 907-786-6320 |
Phone: 907-786-6307 |
| E-mail: m.ford@uaf.edu |
E-mail: fnbjw@uaf.edu |
$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ FUNDING OPPORTUNITY $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
TITLE:HUD HEALTHY HOMES INITIATIVE- Notice of Funds Availability
DEADLINE: May 17, 2000
PURPOSE: To support projects to address housing-related hazards that threaten the
health and safety of children in one of three categories: demonstration, outreach and research.
MORE INFO:
http://www.hud.gov/lea/healthyhomesFY2000.pdf
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Back to Home*A*Syst
© 2000 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. UW-Extension
provides equal opportunities in employment and programming, including Title IX requirements.
UW-Extension programs are open to all persons without regard to race, color, ethnic background, or
economic circumstances. All rights reserved.
Comments may be directed to Kadi Row, krow@facstaff.wisc.edu.
Created by Janice Kepka, jkepka@facstaff.wisc.edu.
