Let's Roll Up Our Sleeves and Continue to Work Hard to Prevent Child Unintentional Injuries

Have you ever thought about how this large stone pier can have different impacts on children in general and on children with disabilities?

Monica, the expert from Safe Kids Worldwide –China (SKC) used a large photo of stone pier in the middle of the road taken by the trainee to show the need to care for children with disabilities in child unintentional injury. If a visually impaired child or adult fell down after bumping into a big stone pier on the street, and that a vehicle happened to pass by at the same time, the child would likely have road traffic injury. This is an unfortunate situation of double injuries. These potential hazards need to be improved. Such explanations were thought-provoking and opened the eyes of participants to vividly see the special needs of children with disabilities in the prevention of unintentional injuries.

Following the SKC Certified Trainer course held in Guiyang in April 2024, the same training was conducted in Xian for the civil social organizations in Shaanxi province on June 20-21, 2024. This training was jointly funded by the European Union (EU) and World Vision. It is one of the training activities of the "Child Unintentional Injury Prevention Project" jointly implemented by World Vision China and SKC.

The training aims to help civil social organizations understand the problems of child unintentional injuries, prevention methods, and learn the communication skills to impart these messages and skills to children and their caregivers. The training adopts a participatory and interactive approach to build the basic capacity of the participants. A total of 31 people from different institutions, organizations and units participated in the training.

∣Up left photo: Participants actively share their thinking in the training. 
∣Up right photo: Participants discuss and explore potential hazards to injuries in group discussion.

∣Down left photo: Participants analyze the factors before and during the injury episode.
∣Down right photo: Participates analyze the potential hazards under the ping-pong table and how to prevent. 

During the training, Monica and trainer Yu of Shanghai Center for Diseases Control and Prevention emphatically explained the theoretical knowledge of child unintentional injury, the current situations, prevention methods and public education methods.

Psychological counselor Gu used psychological characteristics of children of different age groups as entry point to analyze the common psychological problems of children and adolescents. This was then linked to the application in injury prevention education. Gender equality expert Ding helped students to use gender perspective to examine the different impacts of unintentional injuries to girls and boys. Trainer Tan from World Vision introduced the concept of integration of disability inclusion with prevention of child unintentional injuries. Lawyer Ma used case studies to explain the "Minor Protection Law" and discussed measures to increase child protection.

There were also leaders of different organizations in the training. They were deeply inspired by the contents of training. Director Zhou is the Head of Chenggu County Care for Left Behind Children Volunteer Association. She said, “I am deeply impressed by the contents of child unintentional injuries. Through this training, I realize that there are so many potential hazards in our environment. My awareness to potential injuries is strengthened. On the other hand, some unintentional injuries are ‘Preventable with Zero Cost’. For example, increasing the awareness of parents or guardians of children in home environment. One just need to adjust the location of the furniture and tools and this can effectively prevent unintentional injuries.”

Globally, a child dies from a preventable injury every 30 seconds. In China, preventable injury is the first killer of children. 

The “World Report on Child Injury Prevention” of the World Health Organization stated that by implementing effective interventions to prevent child injuries, more than 1,000 children's lives can be saved every day. 

We have started these actions in the prevention of child unintentional injuries. We need your participation. Let us work together to weave a "Child Unintentional Injury Prevention Net"!