The National Kidsafe Day awards are designed to celebrate the achievements of groups and individuals, in the field of childhood injury prevention and safety promotion.

We would like to commend the organisations and individuals who were nominated for awards, for their valuable work and efforts. It is great to see so many people who are passionate and dedicated to helping keep Victoria’s children safe and we look forward to continuing to work with you all.

This year we had a number of fantastic entries across the award categories and were pleased to present two awards in Victoria– a Local Champion Award and a Responsible Retailer Award.

Responsible Retailer Award – ARC Fences

ARC fences is an Australian owned business that has been in operation for 90 years.

They were nominated for the National Kidsafe Day responsible retailer award because of their strong commitment to increasing awareness of water safety. Their business focuses on the importance of providing safe and compliant swimming pool fencing to keep young children safe- however they don’t do this just via selling pool fences.

In 2012 and again this year, ARC fences delivered a water safety campaign featuring Olympic swimmer and mother of 3, Samantha Riley. The campaign includes the provision of swimming tips for toddlers through fact sheets and videos, pool fencing checklists through ARC’s 35 branches and free resuscitation posters to consumers purchasing a pool fence.

More recently, we would like to thank ARC for providing us with a pool gate at short notice, in support of our ‘Closing the Gate on Backyard Pool Drowning’ campaign which was launched by the State Coroner on September 30^th.

Congratulations to Sean Mannering, General Manager, who accepted the National Kidsafe Day Responsible Retailer award on behalf of ARC.

Sean Mannering (General Manager ARC Fences) and Robert Caulfield (Kidsafe Victoria President)

Local Champion Award – Rob Newman

Rob is very passionate about children traveling safely in vehicles. He began working with child restraints in 1990 and soon after, established the Australian Child Restraint Resource Initiative (ACRI).

ACRI provides day to day advice and support to child restraint installers and consultants all over the country. On top of this, Rob often provides his time in kind to assist at child restraint checking days and expos, as well as providing public advocacy on child restraint issues.

He has been particularly cognisant of helping parents and carers whose first language is not English.  He has made video clips that show – without the need for English – various aspect of restraint installation. He developed 2 Registered CR Training Courses and become a Registered Training Organisation himself.

He has been fearless in letting both vehicle and restraint manufacturers know when he has found inadequacies in their restraints or vehicles and in offering suggestions as to how they might be improved. He has never ceased to increase his understanding of restraints and their interface with vehicles.

He promotes robust discussion and constantly strives for the best possible practice. His chief concern is not just with installing restraints correctly but also in getting users of restraints to understand how to do it themselves and use them properly on a daily basis. Rob’s wealth of knowledge and his willingness to share this knowledge for the improvement of child safety is second to none and he was a worthy winner of our Local Champion Award.

Rob Newman and Robert Caulfield