Child Injury Prevention

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• What is Child Injury Prevention?
  • Definitions
  • Ottawa Charter
  • Jakarta Declaration
  • E's of injury prevention
  • Haddon's Matrix
  • Haddon's Countermeasures
  • Ecological model
  • Social Determinants
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  • Project management
• The ChIPP Project
  • Planning
  • Implementing
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• Community Action
  • 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
  • Who can help
• Contact us
• References

Community Action

What does community based child injury prevention mean?

• involvement by individuals and organisations within the community to reduce injuries and promote safety.
• the community working together to identify problems, seeking ways to address them and determining the course of action.
• an approach that is based on the shared interests, values and resources of the community, as well as considering the local data collected and the child injury prevention evidence.
• making long-term changes in the way the community deals with injury.

What does community based child injury prevention need?

In order for there to be effective implementation of child injury prevention in a community, the community will need to:

• identify (either reactively or proactively) that child injuries are a problem worth solving [49]
• consider and address resource implications (money, time, skilled staff, organisation commitment) [48]
• determine the sharing of roles and responsibilities amongst various agencies (eg. Local Government providing meeting venues, in-kind administration support, play group and child care assistance with pre-test of materials, Department of Housing maintenance plan can review home safety, plumbers can check existing houses for tempering valves installation) [48]
• work in a cyclic and systematic manner when looking at child injury thinking and planning for prevention, acting and implementing, project/program management and ongoing reflection on how well the program is going at every stage. [48]
• allow time for action and outcomes (ie. "it is unrealistic to expect community based injury prevention programs to accomplish and stabilise …in one or two years"). [49]

The success of community based child injury prevention comes from the creation of shared knowledge and understanding of injury prevention with a shared commitment and responsibility to safety.

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The roles of community in child injury prevention

• As the setting
  The site for action to occur within (eg. home, child care settings, preschools). [48]
• As the target
  The audience for your program (eg. parents and carers of children aged 0-4 years). [13]
• As the resource
  Where different community groups and members are able to undertake various aspects of the program (eg. Local Council could provide a meeting venue; the newspaper editor could assist with developing information resources; and community members could join working groups etc).[13]
• As the agent
  By linking in with different sections of your community you will be able to strengthen the reach of your program (eg. different community groups will be able to assist to get the message out such as playgroups association for parents and Lions or Probus for grandparent carers).[13]

The community action model for community based child injury prevention provides a phased approach based on consultation of the evidence, expert opinion and our experiences (including the Child Injury Prevention Project).

The model is designed to help guide local communities in addressing child injury prevention. It is suggested that the model be considered sequentially but not used prescriptively or in isolation from good practice project management, health promotion, community development processes and resources.

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