Did you know? Children’s Minnesota puts a significant amount of effort into safety education for parents to help prevent injuries.
“We love kids at Children’s Minnesota, but we would rather see them safe at home,” said Dex Tuttle, injury prevention program manager for trauma services. “Our medical teams care for kids coming into our emergency rooms with preventable injuries. It’s my team’s job to understand how we can take that data and turn it into something helpful so that fewer kids get hurt.”
The need for inclusive and equitable safety resources
According to the health system’s most recent Community health needs assessment (CHNA), patients and families served by Children’s Minnesota speak more than 210 different languages in their homes. In addition, the diversity of families is vast in terms of culture, socio-economic factors, race, gender and more.
“It’s more than knowing what the most common causes of serious injury are, it’s also about knowing the best way to share safety advice in ways that all families can understand and appreciate,” Dex said. “To do that well and right, we knew we needed to ensure our ‘Making Safe Simple’ safety education program is more inclusive and equitable.”
While there are some safety education resources available in a few languages from various organizations, injury prevention material is unfortunately inaccessible to many of our families.
In attempt to remove that barrier, the injury prevention program at Children’s Minnesota, with the help of local animation company Crash + Sues and the Children’s Minnesota marketing and communications team, has created a series of animated videos that rely on visual storytelling rather that written or spoken word to convey safety messaging. Characters in the videos are intended to be race- and gender-neutral in environments stripped of as much cultural bias as possible given the intended message. When possible, special consideration has been given to socioeconomic constraints when depicting safety interventions.
Videos to help caregivers prevent injuries
Current videos that can help caregivers prevent injuries include these topics:
- Furniture tip-over hazards.
- Burns from hot foods and liquids.
- Falls in the home.
- Playground safety.
- Car seat safety.
While kid safety is key, the mental health and well-being of parents is also essential to a safe and healthy home. The team created this caregiver well-being video to make parents feel seen, heard and supported.
“At Children’s Minnesota, our providers are caring for patients every day – and also the child’s family” Dex said. “Our safety education includes helping caregivers under stress connect with community support and resources that translate directly into a healthier environment for their child.”
