Canada

Safe Kids Canada/Sécuri Jeunes Canada launched in 1992. Headquartered in Toronto, it is dedicated to leading and inspiring a culture of safety across the country in order to reduce unintentional injuries, the leading cause of death among children and youth in Canada. In 2002, Safe Kids Canada became a member of Safe Kids Worldwide.

Safe Kids Canada uses a collaborative and innovative approach to develop partnerships, conduct research, educate and advocate for the prevention of serious injuries among children, youth and their families.

As a national leader, Safe Kids Canada uses a multifaceted health promotion approach to increase knowledge, influence attitudes and motivate change in order to keep kids safe. By building partnerships and using a comprehensive approach, Safe Kids Canada works to advance safety and reduce the burden of injuries to Canada’s children and youth.

Working with over 1,800 partners nationally, Safe Kids Canada educates parents on major causes of injury and death and the simple measures available to protect their children. Safe Kids Canada’s programs cover risk areas such as drowning, road safety, home safety and poison prevention.

Highlights

Child Safety Good Practice Guide: Canadian Edition

The Canadian Edition of the Child Safety Good Practice Guide provides the first seminal, comprehensive document in the country from which decision-makers, practitioners and legislators can base their work and recommendations. It is designed to enable Canadian injury prevention practitioners to examine Canadian strategy options for unintentional child injury, move away from what has „always been done‟ and move toward good investments - strategies that are known to work or have the greatest probability of success.

This document is based on the 2006 European Child Safety Good Practice Guide, which was launched by the European Child Safety Alliance (the Alliance) in order to provide guidance on proven, effective injury prevention strategies. Safe Kids Canada formally partnered with the Alliance to bring the Guide to Canada.

Evidence-based good practices are provided in this guide for those considering uptake, transfer and implementation of specific strategies or interventions.  In particular, evidence "at-a-glance” tables include referenced evidence statements and transfer / implementation points on 11 child safety topics, and 17 case studies demonstrate ‘real world’ success in at least one Canadian context.

You can access the Guide online

Safe Crossing Program

In 2010, there were 261 railway grade crossing and trespassing incidents that resulted in 62 serious injuries and 81 fatalities in Canada. A majority of these tragedies could have been prevented. The Safe Crossing Program aims to raise awareness and explore environmental changes to reduce injuries and deaths from crossing railway tracks.

Safe Kids Canada has partnered with CN to offer a comprehensive, easy to use, national safety education program, the Safe Crossing Program. The program activities were developed with key partners and connect rail safety to science, language, social sciences, health and physical education for children ages 5-12. Each activity includes learning objectives, step-by-step activity guides, participant assessment and evaluation as well as follow up activities. You can view an example of an activity.

Additional Safe Kids Canada efforts to promote rail safety include Safe Crossing Week/Month which takes place every November and promotion of different resources including an extensive elementary school curriculum, booklets, fact sheets, and parent letters. Safe Kids Canada also coordinates rail safety book reading times at public spaces and injury prevention activities at children’s hospitals to further awareness of the issue. There is also government relations promotion to Members of the Parliament and Provincial Parliaments and large media outreach.