Injury prevention coordinators
With so many partners interested in the topic of child accident prevention, how do you go about co-ordinating activity?
Dedicated partnerships and knowledge sharing are key factors for success in accidental injury prevention, but some organisations have chosen to go one step further by creating individual ‘injury prevention’ roles.
- The NICE guidance for preventing unintentional injuries in under 15s: This recommends that local areas have a local injury prevention coordinator.
- Better safe than sorry: a report by the Audit Commission, encouraged primary care trusts and local councils to pool resources and consider the appointment of jointly funded posts to support and sustain prevention strategies.
- Accident prevention – a priority review: This also recommended that local areas create a child injury prevention coordinator role.
The role of a child injury prevention coordinator
Injury prevention coordinators can be invaluable in driving forward injury prevention activity in a particular area. Common responsibilities include:
- Identifying priorities for that particular area
- Establishing and co-ordinating productive partnerships in the area
- Drawing up a strategy to reduce unintentional injuries and deaths in that area
We spoke to three injury prevention coordinators to find out more.
The Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) is the UK's leading charity working to reduce the number of children and young people killed, disabled or seriously injured in accidents.