Safe Kids: Partnership for Public Education in Safety

Today I get to speak about an effort near and dear to my heart, Safe Kids.  Several years ago, Marta, my boss, asked me to attend a meeting of the local Safe Kids Chapter to find out the type of traffic accident data they needed and provide it to them.  I found that our office didn’t have the detail of data Safe Kids needed, but I discovered that they were involved in providing families with information on safety, particularly transportation safety.  Our office didn’t have the staff and resources to do much on safety education, but Safe Kids, with the participation of various agencies, did.

            Safe Kids is an umbrella organization under which government departments, social service agencies, and the private sector share efforts to educate the public and provide resources toward keeping kids safe.  The National Safe Kids Campaign is led by the Children’s National Hospital.  Roughly 244 Safe Kids Coalitions, including state coalitions, funnel grant money and information into local safety efforts.  In addition, there are numerous Safe Kids Chapters who receive resources through the state coalitions.  Delaware County Safe Kids has expanded its members and safety program activities to where it is now a coalition.  The Delaware County Health Department is our lead agency and provides our Coalition Coordinator, Tamara White.  The handout we’ve distributed lists the Safe Kids organizations within the MPO areas and outlines how various members of our local Safe Kids share the responsibilities for safety programs.

            We are able to put on events to provide the public with safety information using the combined efforts of Ball Memorial Hospital, Delaware County Health Department, AAA, Red Cross, Open Door, the city & county police, local fire departments, a local teacher, school nurses and an Allstate Insurance agent.  Funds for the child safety seats come from Safe Kids, the Health Department, an Allstate Insurance Company grant, car dealership training grants, a special statewide program by the police and various donations.  The Bicycle Safety/Bike Helmet effort, using Safe Kids grants, has been conducted using the health department, Safety Town, Allstate, a local bike shop and coalition volunteers.  The other safety areas are managed by member agencies directly related to them: fire departments for fire/burns, Red Cross for water safety, BMH for poisons and gun safety.

We’ve received additional help from service clubs such as sororities and the Kiwanis, who are willing to use some of our safety events as volunteer public service projects.  We’ve had cooperation through local school nurses and teachers in bringing safety programs, especially bike & pedestrian safety, into the schools.  

The radio station WMDH and the Children’s Museum have included us in their public events geared toward families and kids.  We’ve been invited to do bike safety presentations at schools and at events put on by the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, AAA & Loews, Walmart, the Minnetrista Cultural Center, and two local churches.  The local radio stations have interviewed our coordinator, Tamara White, on our local safety events and safety efforts.  She has also worked toward having safety videos made available to the local cable television company.

I would like to introduce Jennifer Hopper to talk about our Child Passenger Safety Program.  She works for Ball Memorial Hospital ER, runs the local child car-seat fitting station, and has guided the standards by which we do car-seat inspections, car-seat replacements and booster-seat give-away events.  The public makes appointments to have their child car seats inspected by her to ensure that the seats have been installed in a manner that uses the seats’ best safety features.  Jennifer usually finds that the seats are not fitted as securely as they could be and sometimes the straps to secure the child are not positioned right to fit the child.  The fitting station and efforts through the Red Cross have helped to ensure that more children are properly secured in a child car-seat while traveling.