Italy

Safe Kids Italy joined Safe Kids Worldwide in 2011 and is headquartered at the Pediatric Trauma Center of the Anna Meyer Pediatric Hospital in Florence, Italy.  The Meyer Pediatric Trauma Center is the first pediatric trauma center in Italy, a pediatric referral hospital for the Region of Tuscany, and an injury prevention resource for all of Italy.

The mission of Meyer’s Pediatric Trauma Center (PTC) is to ensure the highest level of pediatric trauma care possible to injured children, to prevent injury, and to promote innovation in pediatric healthcare through academic research and education. Safe Kids Italy was founded at the PTC in order to successfully fulfill the latter two goals and focuses on several child injury prevention risk areas including car passenger safety, bike safety and home safety.

Safe Kids Italy aims to reduce unintentional injury in Italy, beginning with the Region of Tuscany, by providing injury prevention information to the community and by organizing a variety of initiatives and courses with the aim of modifying potentially dangerous behavior within the community.  Safe Kids Italy initiatives currently target the Region of Tuscany with particular emphasis on metropolitan Florence, Tuscany’s capital.

Highlights

Junior Trauma Educator Program

The Junior Trauma Educator JTE) program (i tutor della salute) involves Meyer Trauma Team Physicians who train 16-22 year olds to become ‘Junior Trauma Educators.’ JTEs subsequently educate 5-11 year olds in local elementary schools on the importance of bike and road safety.

This cross-age education is centered around 45-minute interactive presentations at the local elementary schools involving PowerPoint slides, skits and games to a maximum of 30 participants per lesson. At the end of each lesson, bike helmets are distributed to participants, along with a prevention brochure targeted at parents. To date, close to 2500 young children and 75 JTEs have participated. 

Home and Road Safety Course

A home and road safety course for parents of children 0-6 years old, Corso per la Sicurezza del tuo Bambino,  takes place once or twice a month at Meyer Pediatric Hospital. Each course is taught by a trauma team physician and focuses on injury prevention concepts -- both road and domestic unintentional injury.

Parents are required to attend this course before proceeding to “Level 2, First Aid Basics.” Participants are provided with brochures and other injury prevention take-home materials. To date, over 700 parents have participated.