Smoke Free Homes was a pilot set up in 2004 by Sue Hopkinson and JudithMace, a volunteer network co-ordinator and a health co-ordinator workingat Bacup and Stacksteads Sure Start, Lancashire. Health professionalsworking with primary care trusts and children's centres distributeapplication forms asking families to sign up to total or partial smokingbans at home. Parents are then offered help to break the habit.
Ms Hopkinson said, 'The scheme now covers half of 62 children's centresin Lancashire and hopes to roll out across the entire county within thenext two years, reaching 28,000 families in total.'
Fears have been raised that the ban on smoking in public places willincrease smoking at home, putting children's health at greater risk.According to government health figures, 17,000 children under the age offive are admitted to hospital each year from exposure to second-handsmoke.
Most early years settings already operate no-smoking policies. In April,the Just Learning Nursery in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, gained aNational Clean Air Gold Award, an initiative run by the Roy Castle LungCancer Foundation.
Nursery manager Chrissie Richardson said, 'Staff can't smoke in the carpark and can't smoke in their uniform because of the smell. The twosmokers we have find they smoke less because they have to walk quite away away, there's no shelter and it's inconvenient.'
Employment lawyer Marcus Rowland, a partner at Veale Wasborough, said,'Private residences are not covered by the smoking ban, so live-innannies are not affected.'
