New Healthy Homes Specialist credential.

It is with great pleasure that NEHA and the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) announce the joint development of a new credential, the Healthy Homes Specialist (HHS). NCHH is a nonprofit organization based in Columbia, Maryland. Its mission is to develop and promote practical methods of protecting children from environmental health hazards in their homes while preserving affordable housing. Formerly known as the National Center for Lead-Safe Housing, NCHH was founded in 1992. Through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and with the support of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, NCHH manages the National Healthy Homes Training center and Network. The goal of the Training Center is to provide public health professionals, including environmental health practitioners, public health nurses, and housing specialists, the training and tools they need to address the broad ranges of housing deficiencies and hazards associated with unhealthy and unsafe homes. The Training Center also seeks to bring together housing and health professionals to leverage their knowledge, efforts, and resources. NCHH and the Training Center have offered a two-day Essentials for Healthy Homes Practitioner course since June 2005. In August 2006, feeling that a credential in the area of housing would be beneficial, NCHH approached NEHA about administering a credential for health and housing professionals in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

The Healthy Homes Specialist credential will test the housing and health professional's knowledge, skills, and abilities in the assessment of deficiencies and hazards associated with unsafe homes. If you are a professional in one of the following groups, you may be interested attaining the Healthy Homes Specialist credential: NEHA registered environmental health specialists seeking to document their experience and expertise in housing; individuals who have been certified or licensed as lead risk assessors, radon measurement professionals, or mold professionals (i.e., individuals who have developed a basic expertise in a specific environmental hazard in the home and are interested in expanding their capabilities and services); public health nurses seeking to document their expertise in healthy homes; health department and housing agency staff seeking to document their expertise in healthy homes or to better position their agencies to receive HUD Healthy Homes grants; licensed pest management professionals seeking to expand their services--(the use of integrated pest management techniques essentially relies on a knowledge base similar to that of a Healthy Homes Specialist); and certified home inspectors seeking to expand their business by adding healthy homes to their standard services.

The HHS credential examination had its premiere at the NEHA Annual Educational Conference & Exhibition in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in June. For more information on the credential please visit www.neha.org/credential/HHS/index.htm or contact the NEHA Credentialing Department at [phone], extension 337 or extension 339.