European Child Safety Alliance
Press Release
Collective participation in national action planning on child safety leads to significant progress to address the number one cause of child death and disability both in participating countries and at the European level.
Bristol, Monday, 20 September, 2010 – International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention (ISCAIP) Conference
A final report of the Child Safety Action Plan (CSAP) initiative launched today highlights the advances the 26 European countries participating have made in their national actions to prevent childhood injuries and the impact the project has had since its inception six years ago.
This initiative supports countries to assess their performance on child safety, develop plans of action to address gaps identified and develop capacity to implement these action plans. To date the European Region is the only WHO region where countries are working together on joint action plans to address the issue of child injuries. The development of child safety action plans is one of the recommendations of the WHO World and European Reports on Child Injury Prevention.
Results summarised in the final Child Safety Action Plan highlight:
- 29 countries with a child safety action plan in development or being implemented where none previously existed prior to this joint project work
- standardised indicator based, baseline child safety report cards and profiles and a European summary for 24 countries (will be 27 countries later this fall) and the model being explored by regions beyond Europe
- published good practice guide summarising more than 50 effective measures to reduce childhood injuries is now being used in more than 30 countries to enhance effective child safety planning
- agreement by the majority of the project partners in 29 countries that the European level initiative has had significant added value in fostering increased progress over stand alone attempts in their countries.
Country specific impacts also include for example:
- new collaborative and guidance structures at the national level have been formed as a result of this work with new Child Safety Councils formed in Sweden and Norway, a multi-sectoral government committee in Czech Republic and a peer nominated multi-sectoral committee in Finland
- In Ireland, injury has now been included as part of the public health data strategy as a result of the Child Safety Report Card and Profile work in this initiative
- Hungary has developed a nation child safety plan and has included the report card indicators from the CSAP initiative as the measures for monitoring their national progress
- In Spain, the CSAP report card assessments are being used in the 17 autonomous communities as the basis for development of child safety focused objectives and actions for the all ages injury prevention strategy under development
- Finland has adopted the CSAP good practice recommendation to require actual use of personal floatation devices not just their presence on board while boating as part of their national action plan.
Joanne Vincenten, Director of the European Child Safety Alliance stated “The lessons learned through the CSAP initiative are based on the experience of multiple culturally diverse countries and the fact that there is such similarity in the issues and challenges identified suggests that the process and lessons are likely transferable for other countries looking to develop a national action plan for child safety. “ Dr. Alireza Ahmadi, President of ISCAIP supported that “launching of this report today at the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention Conference provides an opportunity to discuss with child injury prevention experts world wide how the lessons learned with 29 countries in Europe may be helpful to move other countries efforts forward in reducing child injuries.”
European Health Commissioner John Dalli has identified child and adolescent safety as a priority for the European Union as stated in his key note address at the 5th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Parma.“In Europe injuries kill more children and adolescents than any other cause of death. We can reduce these injuries significantly by improving the use of prevention measures proven to be effective.” This report and the work undertaken by the CSAP initiative will contribute to the European Commission’s continued efforts to reducing injuries in the European Union.
The European Child Safety Alliance is also pleased to pre announce that we are finalising a new child injury prevention project that will build from this current CSAP work begining January 2011, Tools to Address Childhood Trauma, Injury and Children’s Safety. (TACTICS) New information on this project will be announced early in the new year.
For more information contact Joanne Vincenten, Director ECSA, J.Vincenten@childsafetyeurope.org pr GSM: + 49 160 533 7016
