Keeping Kids Safe is No Easy Task

ALTER program promotes child safety in the home

On Nov. 16, shoppers at the Quebec Street Mall might have been shocked to see children walking around with bruises, head bandages, and neck braces. However, the purpose of the Help Us Promote Awareness event, run by the University of Guelph’s Child Development Research Unit (CDRU) and Guelph Public Health, was to promote child injury-prevention and keep kids safe in the home.

Professor Barbara Morrongiello, the director of CDRU, who also holds a Canada Research Chair in Child and Youth Injury Prevention, developed the ALTER program as a way to reduce the number of ER visits involving children under five years old that are caused by falls in the home. According to Morrongiello, in Guelph alone, 72 young children per month visit emergency rooms due to these types of fall injuries. And a scraped knee or bruised elbow is not the worst wound that can result from fall-related accidents.

“Falls can cause serious injury like concussions, which can affect learning and memory for the long term,” explained Morrongiello.

The ALTER strategy focuses on five approaches that parents can use to reduce their child’s risk of a serious fall injury, including changing the location of a child’s activity to maintaining parental supervision and planning a safe environment where a child can play without encountering dangerous situations. The comprehensive website for the program explains ALTER in detail, and can be found at ALTERforChildSafety.ca.

The awareness event gave kids a chance to have professional photos taken while sporting gruesome injuries that can potentially result from falls, with the help of some face makeup and First Aid equipment. The photos will be used in later promotions for the program. Parents who attended the event were enthusiastic about ALTER, and were eager to apply the approaches.

“You have kids all over the place at home, and it would be good to know how you can avoid [injuries]…You just want to make sure that everything’s safe,” said Preethi Jayanth, whose five-year-old daughter participated in the photo shoot. Nicole Cotie, another participant’s parent, agreed, commenting that the timing aspect promoted in the program, which recommends that tasks around the home be planned during times when children can be effectively supervised, is especially useful – “[I can ask myself], do I have to do this right now?”

Morrongiello says that the response of parents in the community has been positive, especially once they hear the statistics about monthly emergency visits.

“They realize that falls in the home are a big issue,” Morrongiello explained, adding that the approach is easy to integrate into everyday activities around the home. “We are not saying that [parents] should be watching their child 100 per cent of the time. What we are saying is to use ALTER to reduce children’s injury risk when they cannot watch their child 100 per cent of the time.”
The program is currently being delivered in pediatric physician offices during regular checkups. Posters directing parents to the ALTER website will be placed around the city in libraries, recreations centres, and other family-friendly locations. After the evaluation of the program is completed in Guelph next year, Morrongiello says that the initiative will be delivered in other communities through public health units.

“ALTER is easy to use and it increases children’s safety. And everyone has children’s safety as a priority,” said Morrongiello.