Improving Kids’ Environment is a new organization that needs to carefully set its course. IKE lacks the resources to engage in every potential endeavor. And it needs to avoid mission creep. Therefore, IKE will rely on the following general principles in making decisions.

Using principles that reflect its Midwest and Indiana roots, IKE will accomplish is mission be using the following means and methods:

• Applauding leadership;

• Providing constructive criticism;

• Supporting concerned citizens and activists;

• Developing a consensus among key stakeholders;

• Staying current on and stimulating sound research and policy;

• Advocating for prevention-oriented regulations and legislation; and

• Engaging in litigation when necessary.

As a small, fledgling group with limited resources, IKE does not anticipate:

• Leading significant public education efforts, instead it will support and guide the efforts of other organizations;

• Sponsoring general environmental education programs for children, instead it will support and advise other organizations; and

• Competing for scarce environmental resources with environmental activists, instead it will support their efforts and focus on cultivating additional resources interested in children’s health issues.

• Stay focused on children’s health and potential linkage to environmental threats.
• Be pleased when an environmental threat is shown to have little impact on children’s health.
• Stay true to the limits to the research. Activities need to reflect these limits and the uncertainty must temper enthusiasm.
• Fight the assumption that children are "little adults." Children are uniquely vulnerable to environmental threats.
• Better understand environmental threats in the context of a child’s life. IKE staff should volunteer at least a day a month at an organization committed to children’s health such as a children’s hospital or children’s issues.
• Focus on children who are disproportionately impacted by environmental threats. Don’t discount a child’s potential just because he/she comes from a poor or minority family that does not have the resources or time to deal with the issues.
• Children are our future. Healthy children will grow into healthy adults. The health of our children is thus one of our most important investments.
• Solutions to complex environmental health problems require the ongoing communication and collaboration of affected communities and many disciplines including science, medicine, public health, economics, planning, law and public policy.
• Change is difficult, especially for large institutions. Government needs to be prepared to concede success. Rather than layering new programs onto existing programs, it needs to acknowledge successful efforts, rethink unsuccessful ones and reform programs based on their performance. This rethinking should result in more flexibility and more resources to address new problems.

Many of these principles were derived from the national Children’s Environmental Health Network. Thanks to the leadership in this critical field.