Unintentional injury is the number one killer of children under the age of 14 in the United States. Fortunately, there are effective, accessible, and efficient way to prevent 90% of these unintentional injuries – safety education, enforcement, enactment and engineering. Safety education such as that offered by the Center for Childhood Safety, Inc. (CCS), which teaches children and their families strategies for keeping themselves safe from injuries and potential death.
The mission of CCS is to eliminate all preventable childhood injuries that lead to disabilities and death; No small task given the speed with which we live our lives. Families spend more time in the car traveling from one activity to the next, kids are involved in more situations where they are susceptible to possible injuries, and yet at the same time we are seeing a reduction in unintentional injuries and death to children. This, we believe, is due in large part to the valuable safety education provided by programs such as CCS.
How we meet our mission is in the following ways:
Promote and advocate for childhood injury prevention on a local and regional basis
An example of this advocacy was realized in February 2006, when after years of work, the state legislature approved a bill to strengthen our child passenger safety laws. This law, which took effect on June 1, 2006 mandates that children under age 8 be properly restrained in a car seat or booster seat while traveling in a motor vehicle.
Provide consultation on program development
CCS works with area law enforcement, fire personnel, hospitals and many social services agencies in development of our safety strategies. Over the past several years, we have been instrumental in the development of childhood safety programs within our regions rural areas, bringing lifesaving messages to those who may only have access by traveling to Green Bay.
Operate an Information Center
Provide Education
Support material resource distribution.
CCS was established in 1991, by Prevea pediatrician Gordon D. Haugan, M.D. He assembled a board of community volunteers to form the Bicycle Helmet Safety Coalition, Inc. The Coalition’s goal was to increase bicycle helmet awareness by focusing on at-risk children in the greater Green Bay area.
Today CCS cosponsors “Winners Wear Helmets,” a classroom instruction and interactive field trip event that benefits third grade students in Green Bay’s at-risk schools. Over the past sixteen years, this event has put helmets on the heads of nearly 10,000 third graders in Green Bay. The successful “WEE Winners Wear Helmets,” offers bike safety education and fitted helmets to Head Start students.
Bike safety is just a part of the services CCS provides to the children and families of Northeast Wisconsin. CCS also operates a car seat fitting station at its offices, and has hosted free community car seat checks for over 9 years. More than 7,500 families have benefit from the program. The popular “Safety Town” is week-long half-day program teaching 4-6 year-olds a variety of safety lessons including pedestrian, bicycle, personal, fire, water and household safety. Over 2,000 children have “graduated” from that program. CCS staff is also involved in community injury prevention and education events and offer a wide variety of safety presentations to civic groups, schools and businesses upon request.