Topic briefings
These topic briefings are designed to cover key topics in child accident prevention for senior practitioners and policymakers working in this field.
They cover the key issues in child accident prevention, the policy arena, prevention programmes, partnership working, what Making the Link can offer to help you in your work, as well as key signposting to other resources.
The briefings offer an overview of key topics in child accident prevention to all those who commission and deliver services for children and contribute to the safety, health and well-being of children and young people in their community.
They will be useful overviews of key topics in accident prevention for:
- children’s services and public health teams who commission services for maternity, children and families
- statutory and voluntary and community sector organisations who deliver services and programmes for children and families
awide range of practitioners and policymakers working with children and families who need to make the case to deliver and plan child accident prevention work.
Working with the voluntary sector
There are many ways in which statutory organisations can work with the voluntary and community sector (VCS) on child accident prevention, from commissioning one-off projects through to embedding child safety measures into service contracts. This briefing explores how statutory organisations can work effectively with VCS organisations, with case studies that illustrate a range of approaches.
Injury prevention co-ordination
Co-ordinating injury prevention activities across a local area is an opportunity to achieve greater focus and impact. But there's no 'one size fits all' approach to co-ordination - different areas need to find the approach that is right for them.
Engaging with parents and carers
Practitioners wanting to prevent childhood accidents have to find effective ways to engage parents and other carers of young children in safety issues. For parents, keeping their children safe is a very high priority, so engagement might seem like an easy task – but the reality is much more complex. Practitioners need to understand and navigate a range of barriers that can hold people back from fully engaging with child safety.
Housing and the home environment
Young children are most at risk of being seriously injured in an accident at home, with the main causes of these accidents being falls, scalds and burns, poisoning and fires. Factors that increase the risk of a young child suffering a serious accident in the home include poverty and overcrowding.
Public health commissioning for under 5s
Partnership working
Effective partnership working is recognised as a key way to reduce the number of children killed or seriously injured in accidents. It should form an important part of any area’s childhood unintentional injury prevention strategy and work plans. Forming and maintaining good partnerships requires time and effort, but it is an investment that will pay off.
Fire safety
House fires are a significant cause of death in pre-school children with 23 children aged 16 and under dying from fire in 2010-11. This includes accidential and non-accidential fires. Pre-school children are at greatest risk, making up almost 50% of these fire deaths.
Inequalities and deprivation
One child in five is living in poverty and two million children live in poor housing. Children from deprived families are far more likely to be killed, disabled or seriously injured in preventable accidents. Effective child accident prevention programmes can help give every child the best start in life, by reducing health inequalities between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers.
Injury prevention co-ordination
Co-ordinating injury prevention activities across a local area is an opportunity to achieve greater focus and impact. But there's no 'one size fits all' approach to co-ordination - different areas need to find the approach that is right for them.
Injury prevention co-ordination topic briefing
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.