Tamara, can you come to my home and make sure my stuff is safe for my family?

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Question: “Tamara, can you come to my home and make sure my stuff is safe for my family?”
Answer: “Why yes! I can do that!”

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What is a Lead Safe Mama “Healthy Home Consultation”?

First we want to clarify what it is not.

• A Lead Safe Mama healthy home consultation is not a “Hazard Assessment“.*
• We are not associated with a hazard assessor or laboratory – and do not claim to be.
• We do not provide an official report or written summary with our work.
• This work is also not medical advice; I am not a doctor or healthcare provider, and we do not work directly with anyone in the medical professions (although it can be complementary to your work with your doctor — especially if you have tested positive for metals in your blood, urine or hair).

*If you need a written report or a hazard assessment for any reason, I can make recommendations to professionals in your area who do this sort thing.

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What it is: It’s more of a personalized educational experience!

Think of your Lead Safe Mama healthy home consultation as a one-on-one class; an educational opportunity tailored just for you and your family, during which we look at your environment (your home, your consumer goods and how you interact with those things each day) to find potential sources of heavy metal exposure for yourself or other members of your family and to suggest safer alternatives for items of concern.

In Lead Safe Mama home consultations, we often look for sources of the following metals in your environment:

• Arsenic,
• Cadmium,
• Lead,
• Mercury,
• Antimony,
• Cobalt,
• Barium,
• Tin,
• Nickel,
• ….and many other metals about which you may have concerns.

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You are not alone in taking this “class”!

In fact, State health departments, universities, hospitals, and other agencies across the country (including EPA offices!) have hired me (Tamara Rubin, Owner of Lead Safe Mama, LLC) to coordinate and to lead collaborative community educational presentations for which attendees (including doctors, nurses, teachers, contractors and others) often get continuing education credits (CEUs) from their local relevant state agency (for example their local health department) for attending these events, and participating in this conversation. This is your opportunity for a class like this — but one that is 100% tailored to your individual needs / to answer your questions – and to look for safer choices for your family.

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Complementary Inquiries

If you have not yet had a heavy metals urine, blood, or hair test done by your doctor, these tests can be useful tools to have on hand for our visit – and we do encourage our families to ask their doctors if a heavy metals panel would be appropriate in their particular situation. Heavy metals panels often are presented as a bar graph, and if there are specific metals that you test positive for (at unsafe levels, as determined by your doctor), we can be on the lookout for sources of those specific metals in your environment.

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Nuts and Bolts

Before your home consultation

• In preparation for our visit, I often speak with you in advance (or communicate via text or Facebook messages), to help you focus your questions for the time we will spend together.
• Most families I work with take time in the week or so before our visit to pull things out for testing that they want answers about. This might include things in storage or things that are normally stored in cabinets that are not easily accessible. This is not required but it can be helpful in making the most efficient use of our time together. It is best if these items can be set on a kitchen counter or dining room table (so we can review as much as possible during our time together.)

During your home consultation
[For consultations involving XRF testing]

• Your presence is required for the duration of the consultation.
• I come to your home and give you a brief introduction to the process and the instrument that I use. 
• I give you specially designed note pads that you can use to take notes of our visit (or you may choose to take notes on a computer or in your own notebook). Some families write out organized lists in advance of our visit and take their notes on these pre-printed lists (or lists on their computer), but this is not necessary.
• Together we do a walk through of your home and you explain to me how you use each room and who spends the most time in which rooms (including garages and outdoor spaces.) We discuss your work and hobbies to help give context for any possible exposures that might happen outside of the home.
• We test consumer goods you have set aside specifically for testing.
• We test larger items around the house  – like furniture (including beds and mattresses)
• We test soil in any areas that are concerning.

After your home consultation

After I leave I try to provide as much support as you might need in response to my visit. Specifically, I make myself available for follow-up questions (via Text or e-mail) and get you links to research and other documentation (about products, specific potential toxicant exposure situations and possible impacts on your family) to the degree that I can.

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Q. Where do you do these home consultations?
A. I will come to you wherever you are!

I currently live in Portland, Oregon and travel frequently to:

• The San Francisco Bay Area
• The Los Angeles Area [including Santa Monica & Orange County]
• The Denver, Colorado Area
• The Boston, Massachusetts area
• New York City (and surrounds)

If I am already scheduled to be in the area – I normally have a minimum of 3 hours for a home consultation (within an hour drive of where I am going to be), and do not charge for travel time. If you are more than an hour from where I will be I will either charge for travel time or coordinate a longer minimum visit with you (usually 3 or 4-hours depending on your location.) If I am not already scheduled to be in an area for another event or visit, I need to charge a day-rate for both the work day for a visit as well as for the travel days to get to and from the location. Rates are on this LINK.

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Here are the background posts I usually share with people who are interested in having a #HealthyHomeConsultation with me:

1. The index of items here on this site that I have tested with an XRF instrument. LINK
2. Things I recommend testing with a LeadCheck swab. LINK
3. Things I recommend testing with an XRF instrument. LINK
4. A post about the testing methodologies I use in my work. LINK
5. My “Consult” link with some background as well as the rates for all Lead Safe Mama services. LINK

Please let me know if you have any questions. Texting is best: 415-609-3182.

Tamara Rubin
Owner
Lead Safe Mama – LLC
TamaraRubin@mac.com
#LeadSafeMama

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