CARST’s focus for this year’s Radon Action Month is to help our members increase radon awareness in their communities.  To do this, we have developed a range of ideas and supporting materials and are providing them to you here.  We hope these ideas will inspire you to choose one or more interest groups in your community, and reach out and connect!

You are welcome to download and print any of the following items yourself; if you’d like us to print the material and ship it to you please allow 2 weeks before the items will be delivered. 

Check out information on the Take Action on Radon November 2, launch at the Ontario Science Centre, here.

Municipal Outreach:

• Contact your local mayor and council and encourage them to participate in radon awareness month by testing their home and talking about radon at one of their council meetings
• Here are some suggestions of how municipalities can get involved in radon
• Here is a presentation that you can use or send to them on radon
• Here is a pamphlet that you can send via email or we can provide hard copies to give to them

Child Care Centers:

As part of Radon Outreach we anticipate the release of a report on daycares by CAREX (CARcinogen EXposure Canada) and CPCHE (Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health & Environment); we will post the release to our Facebook and twitter account, you can also find the twitter feed on the front page of our website, so watch for it; this may be a good time to contact your local child care facility and encourage them to test for radon.

Here are some tools to help you, including:

• Easy to understand Pamphlet on Testing Child Care Centers
• Postcards for parents
• Posters to put up around the center
• Sample letter for child care centers to send
• Sample radon test record for keeping track of test data

Workplace Information:

As part of radon outreach, Pollution Probe is putting out a Radon Challenge encouraging workplaces to test for radon and to have their employees test for radon.

• Click here for more information
• Consider approaching local workplaces to do a “Lunch and Learn” or “Breakfast Break” session on radon for their employees

Doctor’s Offices

• Perhaps you can reach out to your own doctor or the doctors in your neighbourhood.  Take in with copies of “Radon is it in your Home” pamphlets; so they can make these available in their offices, and you can provide the staff with information on the MacHealth course that Health Canada has developed by giving them a radon.machealth.ca - Radon Education Program card.
• You can order these from radon@hc-sc.gc.ca  or info@carst.ca (for a package of it all)

CARST is also collaborating with other groups on the following areas to make changes happen:

Schools

• We anticipate CAREX will soon be releasing a report on school testing.  CARST is working with various groups to make recommendations to provincial health officials on making a policy to test all the schools in the province.

New Home Warranty Programs

• CARST is working to protect new homeowners from high radon levels; we are preparing a letter to write to all the home warranty programs to ask if they would consider including radon as part of their coverage.

Public Forums (check out our event page)

• We work with various groups to get information sessions for public awareness; CARST has been working in Manitoba, Alberta and BC this fall, we will post dates on our website.  Let us know if you want support to have this happen in your area.

That’s it for this month.  With so many ideas available, let’s all take our message to heart and make November the month we take action on radon!