1 / 17

Injury prevention in the home environment for children and young people

Injury prevention in the home environment for children and young people. Effective interventions. Presented by Louise Woodfine, National Public Health Service for Wales Erlas Centre, Wrexham 26.06.2009. Preventing childhood injuries.

Antony
Download Presentation

Injury prevention in the home environment for children and young people

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Injury prevention in the home environment for children and young people Effective interventions Presented by Louise Woodfine, National Public Health Service for Wales Erlas Centre, Wrexham 26.06.2009

  2. Preventing childhood injuries A combination of factors are required to prevent children sustaining injuries in the home. Environment Improvement in planning and design results in safer homes and leisure areas. Adaptations such as fireguards and stair-gates help to make the home a safer environment. Education This involves increasing the awareness of the risk of accidents in a variety of settings and providing information on ways of minimising these risks. Empowerment Local consultation and community involvement can generate a strong sense of commitment and ownership. Accident prevention initiatives, which have been influenced by the community, are more likely to reflect local need and therefore encourage greater commitment. Enforcement There is legislation which relates to child safety. These regulations ensure that the products we buy meet a reasonable level of safety performance and that new dwellings meet an acceptable level of safety.

  3. Interventions in the Home Environment

  4. Evidence suggests that the implementation of the following programmes would help to prevent injury and deaths of children and young people in Wales. Following identification of families in need, through contact with services such as: • Health Visitor • Midwife • Communities First Team • Pre School provision • Flying Start • Community Nurses • Social work teams Vulnerable families should receive the following safety equipment: • Smoke alarms (where it does not currently happen) • Thermostatic mixing value to prevent bath scalds • Fireguards • Appropriate safety gates • Window restrictors • 4 point safety harness for highchairs • Cupboard/drawer restrictors

  5. Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) website provides a summary of guidance and advice for preventing childhood injuries in the home. www.rospa.co.uk/homesafety/advice/child/accidents.htm#injuries

  6. Safety and Child Development

  7. Safety and child development Children differ in their rate of development but the information below is a guide to development stages.

  8. Causes of injuries Falls • Falls are the most common causes of accidents in the home; they account for 44% of all children’s accidents. • Most falls involve tripping over on the same level. However, the most serious consequences result from falls between two levels.

  9. Fires • Domestic fires pose one of the greatest risks to children. Children playing with matches and lighters frequently start house fires – 46% of all fatal accidents to children are in house fires.

  10. Scalds & burnsMany of the children who attend A&E with a burn or scald are referred on for further hospital treatment.Hot drinks cause most scalds to children under the age of 5. A child’s skin is much more sensitivethan an an adult’s and a hot drink can still scald a child 15 minutes after being made. Young children are also vulnerable to sunburn.Hot bath water is responsible for the highest number of fatal and severe scalding injuries among children.Children can also suffer burns after contact with open fires, a cooker, irons, curling tongs and hair straighteners, cigarettes, matches, cigarette lighters and many other hot surfaces.

  11. Glass related accidents The increase use of glass in the home has led to more glass related accidents. Every year children die following an accident with architectural glass. Many children are also injured when glass tumblers and bottles break. Poisoning Most poisoning accidents involve medicine, household products and cosmetics.

  12. Suffocating and choking Children can swallow, inhale or choke on items such as small toys, peanuts and marbles. Drowning Children can drown in less than 3cm of water.

  13. Good Practice for general child home safety Good Practice for fall prevention in children

  14. Good Practice for burn and scald prevention in children

  15. Good practice for poisoning prevention in children Good practice for choking/strangulation prevention in children

  16. Acknowledgements • Claire Jones, Health Information Analysis Team, NPHS • Nathan Lester, Health Information Analysis Team, NPHS For further information contact: louise.woodfine@nphs.wales.nhs.uk

  17. END

More Related