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Child Injury Prevention

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• The ChIPP Project
  • Planning
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  • Phase 1 - Look at the problem
  • Phase 2 - Think and plan
  • Phase 3 - Act and implement
  • Phase 4 - Relect and evaluate
  • Definitions
  • Injury data sources
  • What works
  • Goals, objectives and strategies
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The ChIPP Project

Injury is a leading cause of death and hospitalisation among Queensland children. Available data on injury showed higher rates of injury in children in regional, rural and remote communities compared with their urban counterparts. Recognising the need for a truly inter-sectoral solution to this problem, in 2001 the Human Services CEO's Committee (compromised of Chief Executive Officers ranging from Housing and Families, to Police and Justice) identified the prevention of child injury as one of its priorities. Under the auspice of this Committee, Queensland Health and the Department of Emergency Services became joint sponsors of a trial project to address the high rate of injury in young children in two targeted regional, rural and remote Queensland communities. This trial became known as the Child Injury Prevention Project (ChIPP).

As ChIPP will not be completed until 30 June 2007, this website is transitional and additonal pages will be included over the next 12 months.

Snapshot

• Goal
  To reduce both the incidence and severity of injuries to young child in regional, rural and remote communities.
• Duration
  5 years beginning in 2002.
• Sites
  Trialled in bothMackay and Mount Isa due to the high rates of child injury, the availability of injury surveillance data from local Emergency Departments and existing interest and activity in injury prevention (through the use of World Health Organisation (WHO) safe communities model).
• Primary target group and setting
  Children 0-4 years and their parents/carers in the home setting.  Other target groups included organisations and individuals with a responsibility for providing goods and services to the primary target group.
• Injury priorities
  Burns/scalds, drowning/near drowning, falls, poisoning and other locally identified priorities (dog bites, drive way run overs).
• Operational approaches
    - used a multilevel collaborative approach (top down/bottom up) that placed high level accountability and management within a community development and social justice context.
    - used a partnership approach based on identification of shared responsibility around the common cause of child injury.
    - used evidence based, multiple strategies combining active methods to raise the awareness of parents and carers of the preventability of child injury, as well as passive methods addressing social and physical environments.
    - considered sustainability from the outset and so a capacity building approach was used to build local resources (physical/social/financial and human capital).
• Governance
  Inter-sectoral (across government and non government agencies) statewide Reference Group established to address locally identified barriers requiring high level support and action.
• Staffing
  Full time Project Officer appointed in each community to facilitate a local collaborative response within existing local WHO safe communities infrastructure.

What we learnt from ChIPP

The story of ChIPP provides a worked, real life example of the translation of evidence, theory and research into practice that identifies key learnings (both positive and negative) about the planning, implementing and evaluating of a comprehensive and sustainable child injury prevention strategy within a local community setting.

Important note
There are sections of ChIPP that will not be able to be easily translated onto paper, given the human elements involved. These include patience, courtesy and consultation which all played an unquantifiable role.

Also, given that no one injury prevention process works in all situations or settings, the use of the ChIPP model in your particular community may require adaptation to take into account the unique circumstances and needs of your environment.

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