Wisconsin's Site Evaluation Program: Choose Safe Places Program
The Choose Safe Places program is a free program available to both existing and prospective group and family childcare programs seeking initial licensure or certification through the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF).
Did you know the air, soil, and water in your childcare program could be impacted by past uses of the property and nearby buildings? The Choose Safe Places program provides free environmental assessments and free educational information on resources to address environmental health hazards like air quality, lead, radon, and drinking water contaminants to help childcare providers keep kids and staff safe.
We work with childcare providers to 'Choose Safe Places' for their group and family childcare programs to ensure children are playing and learning in environmentally safe locations.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) offers the Choose Safe Places program in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF).
Fill out the checklist and participate in the program!
The Choose Safe Places program is managed by Wisconsin’s Site Evaluation Program (SEP) and funded by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s (ATSDR) Partnership to Promote Local Effort to Reduce Environmental Exposure (APPLETREE). Wisconsin’s SEP analyzes chemical information and identifies risks to human health, which includes determining the health impact of past and current industrial waste sites and other chemical releases to the environment. SEP focuses on chemical hazards related to indoor air, water, and soil. SEP also supports community-based organizations and local health departments by offering mini-grants focused on increasing environmental health literacy for Wisconsin homeowners and tenants.
Why is it important to participate in the Choose Safe Places program?
Children are more likely than adults to get sick from environmental hazards because their bodies are still developing and they eat more food, drink more water, and breathe in more air relative to their body size than adults. They also engage in behaviors that make them more likely to contact harmful substances, such as putting their hands in their mouths and crawling and playing on the ground, where vapor concentrations could be higher.
The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) requires every licensed or certified childcare program to meet safety regulations. Some of these regulations protect against chemical exposures, like safe handling and storage of hazardous materials and required testing of private well water.
The Choose Safe Places program builds on these protections. Our program helps participating providers keep kids and staff safe from environmental hazards that could be impacting the air, soil, or water at the childcare program by:
- Checking for chemical contamination from nearby past chemical spills or previous uses of the childcare program's location.
- Providing educational information on resources to address environmental hazards like drinking water contaminants, lead, and radon.
The Choose Safe Places program is education-based and the results of our environmental assessment go directly to you.
How to participate
Step 1: Fill out the Choose Safe Places property checklist
The property checklist only takes about 5-10 minutes to complete! We ask questions about your childcare program such as the year the building was built and the address so we can complete our assessment.
If you are a prospective child care provider, you can also get a Choose Safe Places property checklist by:
- Reading through or ordering a printed version of the child care licensing inquiry packet from the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.
- Requesting one from the child care pre-licensing or pre-certification staff you are working with. Pre-licensing technical assistance for prospective child care providers is available through the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA), 4C for Children, and local Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.
Fill out the Choose Safe Places Property Checklist, F-02410 which is available as a PDF in English, Spanish, and Hmong, as well as in an online submission format.
Complete the free property checklist online
Step 2: Send completed checklist to Choose Safe Places program
Email the completed checklist to dhscsp@dhs.wisconsin.gov or complete the free property checklist online.
Step 3: Receive your Choose Safe Places report!
We complete our virtual environmental assessment once we receive your completed property checklist. You will receive a free, emailed report* from the Choose Safe Places program in 10 to 15 business days.
What can I expect from participation?
Once you complete and submit a Property Checklist, the Choose Safe Places program will:
- Assess the location of your child care program to determine if there are any potential environmental hazards. This evaluation is completed virtually—an on-site visit is not required.
- Send you a report with its findings and recommendations. You can use the report to make healthier spaces for children and staff.
The Choose Safe Places program determines if you or the children you care for could be impacted by harmful chemicals from previous uses of the childcare program location or nearby chemical spills. We also offer educational information on harmful substances like lead in paint and water, drinking water contaminants, and naturally occurring contamination such as radon.
Chemicals can stay in the environment for a long time, even after the cause of the contamination has stopped. We can identify potential chemicals that could still be around and impacting your child care center children and staff by learning how the property was used in the past.
Industrial practices weren’t as regulated in the past as they are today and resulted in chemicals being improperly disposed of or spilled. Chemicals from those spills can stay in the environment for many years and can move through the air, water, and soil to nearby buildings, which can cause contamination.
- Some of these spilled chemicals can turn into vapor and move through the soil and along or through underground utility lines such as electricity, water, and sewer pipes to nearby buildings. Vapor intrusion happens when these chemical vapors enter your child care center through cracks in the foundation or other openings and impact the air you breathe.
- Our program has also provided guidance to child care providers opening a childcare program in a location that was previously a tavern to address third-hand smoke concerns and centers opening in previous dental offices to address mercury concerns.
Identifying whether the property had a previous use that could present a problem for a childcare program or if the location is near an old chemical spill are important ways to protect children. The Choose Safe Places program uses the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) database of contaminated properties in Wisconsin to research child care centers to see if any environmental contamination has been reported at that address that could be impacting the center's air, water, or soil.
Lead is a common environmental hazard in older buildings because it was used in paint until 1978. Every year, thousands of Wisconsin children are poisoned by lead.
The Choose Safe Places program will help you determine how likely it is that you have lead paint in the building and give you resources to help keep children safe from exposure.
Radon is one of the most common, naturally occurring, harmful substances found in Wisconsin. Radon is radioactive and can cause lung cancer.
Even though you can’t see or smell radon, it can leak into your home or building, similar to vapor intrusion. The Choose Safe Places program will give you local resources on how to obtain a radon test kit and what to do if your levels are too high.
Drinking water that is piped into your home or building comes from either a public water supply or a private well. Lead, nitrate, and bacteria are all common water contaminants that can affect your health.
Public water systems are regulated by state and federal laws, but protecting the quality of water from private wells is the responsibility of the well owner. Depending on where you get your water, the Choose Safe Places program can recommend ways to keep you and the children you serve safe from drinking water contaminants.
If we determine there are potential environmental hazards at the location of the childcare program due to previous uses of the building or nearby chemical spills, we offer free indoor air sampling or soil sampling to the childcare provider. If available, our program also provides referrals to possible sources of funding that can be used to address the environmental hazard within the child care center.
About the indoor air sampling process
Though we offer other environmental sampling like soil sampling if we determine chemical hazards could be a concern during the assessment, indoor air sampling is the most common. Note that free indoor air sampling is only offered by the Choose Safe Places program if we suspect the indoor air in your childcare program could be impacted by vapor intrusion from nearby chemical spills or previous uses of the building.
Public health workers will contact you to ask to hang small air monitors to collect chemical vapor levels at your childcare program facility for two weeks. The air monitors are hung in places where children and staff spend the most time and where utilities enter the building. This process can take one to two hours depending on the size of your childcare program facility. Public health workers pick up the air monitors after two weeks and send them for a laboratory to test them for chemicals that can turn into vapor called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The most common VOCs we test for are tetrachloroethylene (also known as PCE or PERC) and trichloroethylene (TCE). The types of VOCs tested for will depend on which chemicals were spilled. There are no costs to you when public health workers test your indoor air in response to a past chemical spill.
More details about indoor air sampling to address vapor intrusion concerns can be found in our Vapor Intrusion for Child Care Spaces fact sheet, P-03769 (available in English and Spanish).
Tips for completing the property checklist
Answer the questions on the property checklist the best you can. If you don’t know one of the answers, we recommend you talk to:
- The property owner if you’re renting the space for your facility.
- Your town engineer or building department.
- Your town planner or zoning office.
Choose Safe Places program FAQ
No. The Choose Safe Places program is education based and is offered in partnership with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), who fully encourage and promote participation.
This free program is here to help childcare providers be aware of environmental hazards that could be present in your childcare program location. If we find a concern, we provide education on how you can address it.
No, but it's highly recommended because it's a free service and children are more sensitive to harmful substances that could be in the air.
The Choose Safe Places program offers free indoor air testing if it is determined a nearby site of environmental contamination could be impacting the indoor air quality of your childcare program. We contact you if we find a potential concern and set up indoor air testing that works with your schedule. We never show up without an appointment with you first.
More information on when indoor air testing might be needed and what that process looks like can be found in our Vapor Intrusion for Child Care Spaces fact sheet, P-03769 (available in English and Spanish).
Yes! The Choose Safe Places program is open to all types of regulated childcare under the Department of Children and Families, including both active and prospective and licensed and certified family childcare programs.
Absolutely. There could be new nearby sites of contamination or new environmental health guidance since the last time you participated.
We do request that you only participate once in a calendar year.
Most childcare providers can complete the property checklist in as little as 5 – 10 minutes!
If the Choose Safe Places program reaches out to you about indoor air testing, that could take one to two hours to complete depending on the size of your childcare program facility.
Yes! The Choose Safe Places program was originally designed for childcare providers going through the initial licensing and certification process. We provide education on any environmental hazards that could be present in the location you're considering.
Reach out to us! The Choose Safe Places program assesses and provides education on hazards related to vapor intrusion, radon, lead, and drinking water contaminants. Program participants can email us at DHSCSP@dhs.wisconsin.gov for any other environmental-health related concerns you have regarding your childcare program location.
Connect with us
Our Choose Safe Places program is available for presentations, both virtually and at conferences. You can also find us at exhibitor tables at some childcare-focused conferences. If you have an upcoming opportunity for partnership, reach out to DHSCSP@dhs.wisconsin.gov to connect!
*Legal disclaimer
Responses to the property checklist are provided as general guidance only and to increase overall safety awareness. This information is not intended to constitute legal or medical advice and you should use it at your own risk. DHS accepts no responsibility or liability for damages arising from use of this information. If a more thorough investigation of the property is warranted, the user should seek the advice of appropriate professionals.
DHS does not make any warranty, express or implied; assume any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information herein; represent that its use would not infringe privately owned rights; nor assume any liability with respect to the use of, or for damages resulting from the use of any information, method, or process disclosed in this publication.
This webpage was made possible by a cooperative agreement [program # CDC-RFA-TS-23-0001] from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Site Evaluation Program and do not necessarily represent the official views of the ATSDR, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.