Hartford, CT (PRWEB) May 28, 2013
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center’s LAMPP Project (LAMPP), an early intervention and prevention program to promote healthy homes and prevent lead poisoning, has been awarded a $ 2 million grant from the State of Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development. The funds will support LAMPP’s work to remove lead and other health and safety hazards from housing units serving low- and moderate-income families.
“We know through experience that low cost interventions in homes can have a big impact on the health and well-being of a family,” explained Ronald Kraatz, Senior Manager of LAMPP. “Ultimately, the beneficiaries of making the homes safe, healthy and energy efficient are the low-income property owners, tenants and families we assist.”
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center’s LAMPP, through a coordinated “one-touch” approach with community partners, integrates health and safety interventions, lead hazard control, energy efficiency interventions, and housing rehabilitation for property owners throughout the state when possible. LAMPP assesses homes for health hazards such as lead paint, mold/moisture, asbestos, radon, trip/fall and provides funds to property owners to remove those hazards. Financial assistance is provided for homeowners in the form of a grant that is forgivable over time.
“Children living in safe and healthy homes have fewer visits to the emergency room, miss fewer school days due to illness, have better grades, and their caregivers miss less work,” said Paul Dworkin, MD, Executive Vice President for Community Child Health. “With this two-year grant, LAMPP’s efforts will be sustained in a greater capacity to produce more healthy and green homes and, in turn, to help ensure the health and safety of Connecticut families.”
Since the program’s inception in 2003, LAMPP, through working with its partner communities, has made more than 2,050 housing units lead safe, remediated health and safety hazards in more than 450 housing units, trained more than 1,100 people on lead safe work practices, and educated more than 30,600 people about the dangers of lead poisoning.
About Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
Connecticut Children’s Medical Center is a nationally recognized, 187-bed not-for-profit children’s hospital serving as the primary teaching hospital for the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. Named among the best in the nation for several of its pediatric specialties in the annual U.S. News & World Report “Best Children’s Hospitals” rankings, Connecticut Children’s is the only free-standing children’s hospital in Connecticut that offers comprehensive, world-class health care to children. Our pediatric services are available at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford and at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury, with neonatal intensive care units at Hartford Hospital and the University of Connecticut Health Center, along with five specialty care centers and 10 other locations across the state. Connecticut Children’s has a medical staff of nearly 1,100 practicing in more than 30 specialties.
For more information, visit http://www.connecticutchildrens.org or connect with us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/connecticutchildrens and Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ctchildrens.