Public Health England highlights interagency training as evidence of effective delivery of child accident prevention
Public Health England (PHE) has updated the Six Early Years High Impact Area documents that inform the commissioning of health visiting and integrated early years services. High Impact Area 5 focuses on minor illness and accidents, and highlights interagency training on child accident prevention as evidence of effective delivery.
In particular, PHE highlights multi-agency training on child accident prevention as a key element in Professional/Partnership Mobilisation, enabling the early years workforce to identify common themes and advice, and provide consistent evidence-based information on accident prevention to parents and carers.
This builds on earlier guidance from PHE that training is a key action area for local authorities and their partners in relation to accident prevention and children under five:
“The early years workforce needs support and training to enable it to strengthen its central role in helping to reduce unintentional injuries.” – PHE, June 2014
Providing the context for the updated Early Years High Impact Area, PHE states:
“Injuries caused by accidents in the home are leading causes of attendances at Accident and Emergency and hospitalisation amongst the under 5s. Unintentional injuries are also a major cause of morbidity and premature mortality for children and young people in England. There is a strong link between unintentional injury and social deprivation, with children from the most disadvantaged families far more likely to be killed or seriously injured.”
At Child Safety Media, we have a long and well-established background in running interagency safety events where annually, we interact with thousands of year 5 and 6 pupils who are at a crucial stage in their lives. Attendance at the events raises their awareness and understanding of risk and danger in a controlled and safe environment and also enhances their interpersonal and communication skills, so we welcome the recognition by Public Health England of the value of interagency training.
