Recent Online Session: Water Safety: How to Keep Kids Safe In and Around Water

Safe Kids Pennsylvania, in collaboration with the Center for Schools and Communities, conducted a live, online session entitled, "Water Safety: How to Keep Kids Safe In and Around Water." Presenters offered their expertise in educating the public about safety in and around water. Presenters for the session include George Zimmerman, American Red Cross of the Susquehanna Valley; Penny Pantano, Swim-in Zone; and Anne Franchak, Safe Kids Pennsylvania.

View this session and all archived online sessions.

National Safe Kids Week Kicks-Off with a First-Time Safety Report Linking Research on Unintentional Injury and a Child’s Development

Safe Kids Pennsylvania Offers Age-Appropriate Tips to Help Keep Children Safe

A study of child development and unintentional injury released today by Safe Kids USA is the first to link age-appropriate safety tips to an extensive analysis of research on children’s cognitive, behavioral and physical development. The results create a blueprint of necessary safety recommendations for parents and caregivers to follow as children age.

"We’ve always taught parents how to keep their kids safe, but this report highlights precisely when and why those precautions are essential,” says Anne Franchak, Safe Kids Pennsylvania Executive Director. “Understanding children’s cognitive, behavioral and physical abilities and limitations at various stages is the first step in being able to foresee and prevent serious injuries.” Read more...

Safe Kids Pennsylvania Statewide Meeting Highlights

Safe Kids Pennsylvania held its first ever live, online statewide meeting on Thursday, April 2, 2009. The meeting included the following updates:

Safe Kids PA Update, Safe Kids PA staff
Legislative Update, Jim Carlisle, Safe Kids Allentown/Bethlehem
Safe Kids USA Update, Patrick Schoof, Director, U.S. Coalition Network
Walk to School Day Collaboration, Farah Kaufmann, Pennsylvania Advocates for Nutrition and Activity (PANA)
Resource Sharing: Safety Towns, SK Allegheny, SK Allentown/Bethlehem, SK Carbon and SK Wyoming

Safe Kids Statewide Meeting Slides (PDF format)

View the recorded online meeting

NOTE: In order to view the recorded session, you must have the Elluminate Live! Java application downloaded to your personal computer. There is no cost to download the software. To configure your computer, visit the Elluminate support page at: http://www.elluminate.com/support/

Safe Kids Bicycle Safety Mini-Grant Available

The Pennsylvania Department of Health, through Safe Kids Pennsylvania, will make available mini-grants ranging from $1,000 - $3,000 to any organization throughout the state during 2009-2010, for projects designed to increase bicycle safety and reduce bicycle-related injuries. The primary target audience will be children and youth ages 5-18 with a secondary focus on adults.

Please visit the Available Grants page for more details including the mini-grant guidelines and application.

Safe Kids Smoke Alarm Mini-Grant Available

The 2009-2010 Safe Kids Smoke Alarm Mini-Grant applications are available now through June 18, 2009.

Please visit Available Grants page for more information including the applications and Mini-Grant guidelines.

CPSC Warns that 9 Out of 10 Unintentional Child Poisonings Occur in the Home

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Each year, unintentional poisonings from consumer products commonly found in the home kill about 30 children and prompt more than 2 million calls to the nation's poison control centers. More than 90% of these calls involve poisonings in the home. On average, each year an estimated 80,000 children are treated in hospital emergency departments for unintentional poisonings.

This year’s 48th observance of National Poison Prevention Week, which is March 15-21, aims to help prevent those childhood poisonings. As one of the longest running public health campaigns, National Poison Prevention Week has contributed to the more than 80% reduction in the number of deaths related to poisonings (down from 216 in 1972). While there has been a significant decrease in deaths, studies show that unintentional child poisonings still remain a serious concern.

Children younger than age 5 account for the majority of the non-fatal poisonings. A recent review conducted by U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission staff found that 70% of poisonings involve children 1 to 2 years of age. Oral prescription drugs, non prescription drugs and supplements were involved in more than half of the incidents.

“Awareness and action are the keys to preventing unintentional poisonings,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord. “Children act fast. So do poisons. That’s why we urge parents, grandparents and caregivers to have layers of poison prevention protection in the home.”

CPSC recommends that parents and caregivers immediately take these three steps. First, keep medicines and household chemicals in their original, child-resistant containers. Second, store the potentially hazardous substances up and out of a child’s sight and reach. And lastly, keep the National toll-free poison control center telephone number, 800-222-1222, handy in case of a poison emergency.

Additional poison prevention tips to check during National Poison Prevention Week:

When hazardous products are in use, never let young children out of your sight, even if you must take them along when answering the phone or doorbell.
Keep items closed and in their original containers.
Leave the original labels on all products, and read the label before using.
Always leave the light on when giving or taking medicine so that you can see what you are taking. Check the dosage every time.
Avoid taking medicine in front of children. Refer to medicine as "medicine," not "candy."
Clean out the medicine cabinet periodically and safely dispose of unneeded and outdated medicines.
Do not put decorative lamps and candles that contain lamp oil where children can reach them. Lamp oil can be very toxic if ingested by young children.

New Resources on Child Injury Prevention from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Injury Center

Unintentional injuries - such as those caused by burns, drowning, falls, poisoning and road traffic - are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children in the United States. Each year, among those 0 to 19 years of age, more than 12,000 people die from unintentional injuries and more than 9 million are treated in emergency departments for nonfatal injuries.

In conjunction with the World Health Organization and UNICEF’s joint launch of the World Report on Child Injury Prevention (2008), the CDC’s Injury Center is pleased to announce the release of new resources for the prevention of child injuries in the United States.

Protect the Ones You Love: Child Injuries Are Preventable. This is a new initiative to raise parents’ awareness about the leading causes of child injury and how they can be prevented. As part of the initiative, the Injury Center has developed a number of resources that can be used to help parents to keep their children injury-free, including fact sheets, podcasts, e-cards, and media and event planning guides. Find these and other tools, all available free of charge, at: http://www.cdc.gov/safechild/.

CDC Childhood Injury Report: Patterns of Unintentional Injuries among 0-19 Year olds in the United States, 2000 – 2006. This data report provides an overview of unintentional injuries related to drowning, falls, fires or burns, transportation, poisoning, and suffocation, among others, during the period 2000 to 2006. Results are presented by age group and sex, as well as the geographic distribution of injury death rates by state. Read or download a copy of the report at: http://www.cdc.gov/safechild/Child_Injury_Data.htm.

Child Injury Prevention Video: On December 11, 2008, the Injury Center brought together a network of professionals to look at how policy, communications/media outreach, and national and local programs can be used to empower parents in their efforts to protect children. Watch a video of the highlights of the meeting at: http://www.cdc.gov/SafeChild/about.htm.

We encourage you to use these resources to educate, build awareness, and promote childhood injury prevention in the United States. Working together, we can keep our children safe and help them live to their full potential.

New CDC Report Finds Motor Vehicles and Falls are Causes of Most Child and Teen Injuries and Deaths in the United States

An estimated 55 million children and teens from birth to age 19 were treated in emergency departments for unintentional injuries from 2001 to 2006, according to a new report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report also notes that between 2000 and 2005, unintentional injuries resulted in 73,052 deaths among children and teens. Falls caused most non-fatal injuries (about 2.8 million each year), while most deaths were transportation-related (about 8,000 deaths each year involved a motor vehicle occupant, pedestrian or pedal cyclist).

According to the report, every year, an estimated 9.2 million children visited emergency departments for unintentional injuries. Falls were associated with over half of the nonfatal injuries involving children less than one year, while transportation-related injuries and deaths were highest among children 15 to 19 years of age. Overall, males were almost twice as likely to die as a result of unintentional injuries than females.

To help parents and other adults prevent child injuries, CDC is also launching the “Protect the Ones You Love” initiative. More about this initiative can be found at www.cdc.gov/safechild.

“Injury risks change as our children grow and we want them to be appropriately protected as they develop,” said Dr. Ileana Arias, Director of CDC′s Injury Center. “We encourage parents to be vigilant and to understand that there are proven ways to help reduce injuries at each life stage.”

Other notable findings in the CDC report include:

The highest fatality rates were among occupants of motor vehicles;
Drowning was the leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages one to four. For those ages 5 to 19, most injury deaths were due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle crash; and
Children ages one to four also had the highest nonfatal injury rates due to poisoning and falls.

CDC′s report of national and state information on the leading causes of childhood injury is being released to coincide with the World Health Organization′s (WHO) and the United Nations Children′s Fund′s (UNICEF) launch of the 2008 World Report on Child Injury Prevention. The World Report provides a global perspective of child injury and prevention.

The full report, “CDC Childhood Injury Report: Patterns of Unintentional Injuries among 0-19 Year Olds in the United States, 2000-2006,” is available at www.cdc.gov/safechild/Child_Injury_Data.htm.

Booster Seats are Not-One-Size-Fits-All

Parents Must Find the Right Fit for Their Child

Booster seats are a proven way to help keep kids safer in vehicles.
In fact, for children 4 to 7 years old, booster seats reduce injury
risk by 59 percent compared to seat belts alone, according to
researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

But a report released today by the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety has questioned if certain booster seats provide children with
a better fit than others. Kids come in all shapes and sizes, and not
all boosters will fit all children the same way. There are no "good"
seats and "bad" seats as the IIHS list might suggest—all meet the
government standard in crash tests. But booster seats are not
designed to be one-size-fits-all. The different variations in
boosters allow parents to find the right fit for each child.

It's All About Fit

Parents and caregivers should not panic and they should continue to
use booster seats for their children on every ride. However, there
are a few simple steps parents can take to make sure a child's
booster fits the correct way.

Safety belts are designed for adults and many children are too small to get a proper fit without using a booster seat. Most children who have outgrown their toddler seats but are still under 4 feet 9 inches tall and less than 80 pounds will be safest using a booster seat.

Take this easy fit test with your child to determine if a booster
seat fits your child:

Place your child on the booster seat and fasten the lap and
shoulder seat belts around the child.
Use the seat belt guides on the booster seat for the lap and
shoulder belts.
Check to be sure the lap belt rests on the top of the thighs or
low on the hips.
Check to be sure the shoulder belt is positioned on the bony
shoulder- not the neck or face. Never place the shoulder belt under the arm or behind the back.

If the shoulder belt and lap belt are on the child as stated above,
the booster seat will work as designed to protect your child in a
crash. If not, try another brand until you find the one that fits
your child. Fortunately, there are lots of choices.

If you're confused or would like a certified child passenger safety
technician to evaluate your child, contact Safe Kids Pennsylvania by calling 1-800-683-5100.