IPM FOR CHILD-CARE FACILITIES

Child-care facilities (CCFs) are those where preschool children are cared for on a daily basis. They are also referred to as day-care centers, kinder schools, nursery care and preschool centers. Child-care centers may be formal businesses operated by a corporation involving a "chain" of centers (e.g., Kindercare), run by local churches or operated within a residential home in the neighborhood. Child-care facilities usually care for children from infants to those of kindergarten age, although some also care for newborns, who are only a few weeks old. Larger centers may care for up to 125 children, while some may care for only a dozen or so.

This article presents a generalized overview of IPM programs for child-care facilities. Variations may occur among pest management programs in child-care facilities from one state to another — depending on specific state agencies and local regulations — relative to the use and restrictions associated with pesticide applications.

A PROFILE OF CHILD-CARE FACILITIES. A basic understanding of CCFs is important for pest professionals who are considering servicing these accounts. Child-care facilities are among the most sensitive of "sensitive accounts" a pest professional is likely to encounter. Many children and toddlers indoors play on floors and/or close to walls. Outside, they sit on the ground and run along fences. Children younger than five tend to be especially inquisitive of new objects they find. And as most of us know, children are constantly placing their hands and any objects they find into their mouths.

Around CCFs, toys are abundant both indoors and outdoors. Indoors, mattresses, floor toys and floor furniture accommodate floor activity. Thus, all toys and floor furniture are constantly touched and/or contacted by the children. Through hand contact, any materials on the hands can eventually end up in the mouth.

For these reasons, pest professionals must exert the greatest care when servicing child-care facilities relative to any considerations regarding chemicals. Even innocuous pesticide applications applied strictly according to label directions can create wide-scale negative publicity and potential lawsuits for a facility and the servicing pest professional.

REGULATORY AGENCIES. Pest management professionals conducting work for child-care facilities should be familiar with the agencies that regulate and/or guide these facilities (and therefore also affect servicing pest management companies). Moreover, being able to speak the language of the child-care facility industry enhances the chances of favorable responses to bids and contacts for services.

For many states, child-care facilities are regulated at the state level and various agencies may be involved. In some areas, child-care facilities are inspected by only the local board of health, in a manner similar to what would be conducted at the local elementary school. In the majority of cases, however, there are formal and highly structured state organizations that will, in addition to the local board of health, inspect and provide guidelines for most of the "commercial-level" day-care centers. Many of these organizations are typically under the state’s "family and social services administration" or agencies with similar names. Recognizing the appropriate acronyms (e.g., FSSA) in each state is important for pest management professionals. These agencies play an important role relative to what services and programs pest professionals offer to child-care facilities. This is because these agencies typically have guidelines regarding "environmental threats" to children in day-care facilities. These threats include filth, chemical exposures (pesticides, lead, cleaning compounds, etc.), air pollutants, pests and others.

Different states have a variety of requirements that child-care facilities must follow. In addition to these requirements, state agencies typically provide the facility with manuals containing many different recommendations and guidelines for managing other aspects of the facility. Many manuals now include and encourage the facility to employ pest professionals that use only IPM programs.

CHILD-CARE FACILITY IPM PROGRAMS. Integrated Pest Management programs in child-care facilities are similar in principle and techniques to school IPM programs. That is, pest management programs are based on the premise that inspections and monitoring efforts first determine the presence or absence of pests and identify all factors that might contribute towards pest issues (i.e., conducive conditions) at the facility. The management/elimination of any pests is then via non-chemical approaches first. If pesticides are necessary, only low-impact chemicals and applications are employed.

But it must be stressed here that pesticidal treatments are not made according to a predetermined schedule — they are made only when and where monitoring has indicated there is a pest present which can negatively affect the children or the building. Thus, the five steps to IPM in child-care facilities can be categorized as follows: 1) inspection, 2) monitoring, 3) non-chemical approaches, 4) low-impact pesticidal applications (only if necessary), and 5) communication.

INSPECTION. Being proactive is the cornerstone of any urban IPM program and inspections and monitoring efforts are the essential elements of being proactive. Each time a child-care facility is serviced for IPM, an inspection of both the interior and the exterior must be performed. As is true for any sensitive accounts, all conducive conditions must be noted and brought to the attention of the facility’s management.

MONITORING. Pest monitors must be installed into the rooms and areas of the facility vulnerable to crawling pests and rodents. These areas include the kitchens, all storerooms, utility closets, storage closets, custodial closets, beneath sinks in classrooms and any other areas as determined by the history of the account and the discretion of the servicing pest professional. During the past few years, "high-tech" monitoring equipment has emerged that provides excellent utility for crawling pests (e.g., ants, cockroaches, brown recluse spiders); pre-emptive ant and roach baiting; and mouse control via installed snap traps. All of these are "packaged" within sturdy lockable plastic boxes that look professional when seen on the floor by CCF (and all other sensitive account) employees. I prefer to call these multi-use monitoring devices "IPM stations."

IPM stations can be installed into kitchens and storerooms where janitorial activities tend to ruin other monitoring devices. For example, inexpensive cardboard sticky traps installed directly on the floor often get crushed, wet or pushed back into inaccessible areas. Moreover, from a sales perspective, showing and telling a sensitive account manager (whom may be uninformed to what IPM really means, but wishes to follow state guidelines in having an IPM program installed) that you will install IPM stations provides an "IPM tangible" to them.

In those areas not subject to disturbance (e.g., some cabinet shelves, suspended ceilings, etc.), the use of simple cardboard sticky monitoring traps will suffice for monthly monitoring purposes. There is no scientific formula for how many monitors a child-care facility might need. A commercial child-care facility that cares for 100 children might contain three to four IPM stations and eight to 12 sticky traps installed into various inaccessible areas. At any rate, monitoring devices, regardless of the type, should never be installed in areas where children might encounter them.

NON-CHEMICAL APPROACHES. As part of a cooperative IPM program, the facility should implement all the non-chemical recommendations as would be done in any other commercial-sensitive account.

Certainly, the most important non-chemical approach for these facilities is to deny pests entry to the facility via good pest proofing. All doors, windows and utility systems must be pest proofed. It makes little sense for a child-care facility (and parents) to claim they want minimal pesticide applications while at the same time allowing pests easy daily entry to the building beneath their doors.

Sanitation levels for the entire child-care facility must be exceptional, but especially for kitchens and all food-storage areas. Keep in mind that although child-care facilities are "inspected" by state agencies, rarely are state inspectors aware of some of the more subtle conditions conducive to pests. Rarely will a child-care facility be "written up" for having too much cardboard clutter (which, as most pest management professionals know, is conducive towards cockroaches, brown recluse spiders, ants and other pests).

Vacuuming hard-to-reach areas of all rooms in child-care facilities will be essential to remove food residues that attract ants and other pests. All ceilings/wall corners should be vacuumed regularly to remove unseen spiderlings.

Clutter is a typical issue for many child-care facilities (Figure 3, this page). Corners and all storage areas in each room must be accessible for inspections and possible installation of monitors or other IPM devices and materials. Toys must be organized in such a fashion to allow access to all corners. Pest management professionals can provide child-care facility managers with clutter control suggestions (see Bobby Corrigan’s April 2001 "Vertebrate Pests" column, www.pctonline.com/articles/article.asp?MagID=1&ID=1391&IssueID=140).

On the exterior of the facility, important non-chemical issues include proper landscaping to eliminate pest attraction and harborages and proper refuse management to avoid attracting flies, yellowjackets, rodents and ants to the facility’s periphery. Additionally, all areas that might accumulate stagnating water must be eliminated. For example, rain gutters must be kept clear and working to avoid mosquitoes breeding on the site. Open sandboxes and "play tires" should be eliminated as both are conducive to attracting potentially dangerous health pests.

PESTICIDE APPLICATIONS. In general (and in accordance with the principles of IPM), pesticides should never be applied as routine, "preventive treatments" around child-care facilities. Certainly no "baseboard sprayings" or routine exterior spraying programs should be conducted if there are no pests present to justify such applications.

In most cases, the pesticides most apt to be employed around day-care centers are ant and cockroach baits. When exterior ant baits are used, they should not be applied around any areas where children play. Nor should baits be applied near areas where shoes could track the bait into the child-care facilities.

Occasionally, liquid and other formulations might be used where baits are not effective and/or are the appropriate formulation for a particular pest. Should liquids (sprays) be needed to solve a pest problem, only low-impact formulations and applications should be made (e.g., low-toxic, low-volatility formulations applied directly into cracks and crevices or as spot treatments under low pressures).

Regardless of the formulation, many state regulatory agencies prohibit the "spraying" of pesticides when children or staff are present. In general, it is best that no pesticides are applied when children and staff are present. For rodents, rodenticide baits should not be used unless the rodents cannot be eliminated via the use of snap traps within trap stations. Baits are not appropriate for day-care centers because of the potential of bait translocation, especially with pellet-style baits. However, there is an important exception. Should a serious mouse infestation exist, baits are often necessary, as traps may not be able to eliminate all the mice quickly. In these cases, only block formulations should be used and only inside tamper-resistant bait stations in which the blocks are secured. All stations should be accounted for and be removed once the infestation is eliminated. Traps and/or trap stations can then be substituted for the baits.

Whenever any pesticides are applied at child-care facilities, chemical application logs should be maintained and, of course, the facility should be provided with the appropriate and current labels and MSDS sheets.

COMMUNICATION ISSUES. Certainly not any less important in the entire child-care facilities IPM program is the need for constant communication and education among and between all involved parties, including the facility’s administrators, food prep, janitorial and maintenance staffs, and the pest professional. For example, a pest professional cannot protect a facility from mice or ants if he or she cannot gain access to the walls of storage closets due to clutter. Such issues must be communicated to the facility and the facility’s management must take all conducive condition recommendations of their pest professional earnestly.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the entire issue of child-care facility IPM is a moot point if the child-care facility or company places a low priority on pest management relative to budgeting. Quality pest management services are essential in protecting the health of the children entrusted to the child-care company or guardians. Child-care facilities that purchase the cheapest service in town are not likely to obtain quality service by professionals well experienced in sensitive account IPM programs.

The author is president of RMC Pest Management Consulting and can be reached at rcorrigan@pctonline.com or 765/939-2829.