2013 Update

The San Francisco Asthma Task Force has produced their second report for child care providers: “2013 Update: Bleach-free Disinfection and Sanitizing for Child Care”. This update report reflects the changes in the bleach-free recommendations for child care settings since the Task Force issued their preliminary recommendations in their March 2011 report. The update also provides a how-to guide for: converting a single site to a bleach-free environment, replicating this intervention on a larger scale, and assuring that a child care site is prepared for communicable disease outbreaks.

Click here to access the 2013 Update Report.

Child care centers and family child care homes in California have specific sanitizing and disinfection requirements to meet infection control per Community Care Licensing Division Title 22 Regulations. For many years, child care workers have primarily used bleach to meet these requirements, since bleach is relatively inexpensive.

Many child care providers had experienced breathing difficulties from the use of bleach, as well as corrosive burns to skin and clothing, and wished to find alternatives that would be in compliance with infection control regulations. In 2008, the San Francisco Asthma Task Force took on the challenge to identify bleach-free disinfectants and sanitizers that do not act as a strong irritant that exacerbates asthma symptoms or causes new asthma cases. The Task Force issued preliminary recommendations in 2011, and has now updated those recommendations in this 2013 report.

In addition to the report, there are several other resources useful for different settings:

*Child Care Licensing Quarterly Update Spring 2012

*Child Care Center Toolkit, English

– Child Care Center Training_English
– Ordering Information

*Family Child Care Provider Toolkit, Trilingual

– Family Child Care Center Training

- Family Child Care Training_English
- Family Child Care Training_Chinese
- Family Child Care Training_Spanish

– Ordering Information

- English
- Chinese
- Spanish

*Instructional placards and Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)

– Instructional Placards

- SaniDate and Oxivir, Trilingual
- Hand washing, English

– MSDS, English

- SaniDate
- Oxivir Tb
- Alpha HP Multi-Surface Cleaner
- Alpha HP Multi-Surface Disinfectant Cleaner

*Training Slideshow_trilingual

For World Asthma Day, 2012, Breathe California and the San Francisco Asthma Task Force honored the Compass Children’s Center as an Asthma Friendly Child Care. The award recognizes the center for its commitment to providing safe and healthy environments for children with asthma and for becoming the first bleach-free child care center in San Francisco. Compass implemented the bleach-free program in 2010, with training from the San Francisco Asthma Task Force, in an effort to protect their staff and the children they serve from the harmful effects of bleach. A video about their program can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMRVpnbsW0Q

Asthma Task Force Services for San Francisco Sites:

Referral for service (San Francisco only)