Speakers Bureau

Child safety community talks service

Kidsafe VIC has provided Safe Kids Now child injury prevention factsheets as part of the Maternal Child Health service and Child Health Record age and stage visits for all new mothers and babies for several years.

This has led to the development of a new service of community child safety talks “the Kidsafe Speakers Bureau” to provide neutral evidence-based information about child safety for parents and to facilitate parental uptake of prevention strategies in their homes.

The Kidsafe Speakers Bureau service commenced in January 2007 as a 6 month pilot program tailored towards Maternal Child Health centres in selected local government areas of Whitehorse City Council, Hobsons Bay, Moreland, Banyule and Nillumbik. The pilot program is limited to these councils due to current limitations in funding and speaker availability, however it is Kidsafe’s intention to gain funding for the program to be able to expand it to a state-wide service by the pilot’s completion.

The target audience of the Kidsafe Speakers Bureau is new parents with babies under 12 months of age. Hence, the talks are designed to compliment existing mother’s group meetings coordinated by Maternal Child Health services as part of the key age and stage visits.

The Kidsafe VIC Speakers Bureau talks will be delivered by experienced child safety professionals and specially-trained Mum’s.  The talks will cover common child injury topics, such as

• Fire, burns and scalds
• Drowning and near-drowning
• Falls
• Cuts and finger jams
• Poisonings
• Choking and suffocation
• Pet safety, and
• Road safety

and what strategies parents can take to make their homes a safer place for their children.

Some take-home information resources will be provided to participants to refer to at their leisure. All information provided will be of a neutral nature highlighting latest statistics, regulations and expert recommendations, and only relevant examples of safety products or services will be referred to.  Kidsafe VIC prides itself on providing parents with information and options rather than advocating for a specific product or brand.

The pilot program is offered as a free service to selected Maternal Child Health centres, however bookings are essential.

To book a Kidsafe VIC Speakers Bureau talk on child safety for your next mothers’ group please complete the request form on the website and return to us at your earliest convenience. Kidsafe VIC will endeavour to meet your request as closely as possible.

Family Day Care Safety Resource Review

Kidsafe Victoria recently won the tender to review the Victorian Family Day Care guidelines.

National safety guidelines for Family Day Care have been developed by the Child Accident Prevention Foundation of Australia since 1986 (Kidsafe, 1993), however similarly to the National Standards, adherence to them has been variable across Australia. The guideline itself has seen numerous modifications by FDC schemes to meet local needs.

The National safety guidelines have been recently revised in 2008 in collaboration with key stakeholders from all states and territories, including representatives from relevant state and territory government agencies, injury prevention organisations, researchers, privately owned child care centres and local government managed family day care schemes.

The current guidelines are being specifically developed for Family Day Care Victoria in order to achieve consistency in the implementation of child safety procedures and minimum standards by all FDC schemes in Victoria.