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For 20 years, Child Accident Prevention Jersey (CAPJ), which is coordinated and funded by Family Nursing & Home Care’s charity fundraising, has educated more than 18,000 children in how to keep themselves and their families safe in a variety of situations at the annual Safety In Action event.
This year, the event will take place at Highlands College from 9th-18thJuly and will be attended by over 1000 year five school children. They will participate in various workshops provided by States of Jersey Police, Prison! Me! No Way!!!, Headway, Trading Standards, The Bosdet Foundation, States of Jersey Fire Service and St John Ambulance, where they will learn about fire safety, first aid, play safety, road safety, home/kitchen safety and water safety.
Each workshop will be led by an expert in that field and children are educated to assess situations, point out dangers, answer questions and learn to take responsibility for their own safety and relay the information to family members.
The event’s workshops are regularly reviewed and updated to remain relevant. The play safety workshop is a recent addition to the event programme, which aims to inform children of the dangers of not wearing a cycle helmet correctly, as well as trampoline safety. CAPJ also successfully lobbied local government for a law change in conjunction with the charity, Headway, which saw the Cycle Helmet Law introduced in 2014.
Mandy Le Tensorer, is employed by FNHC through charitable funds as coordinator for CAPJ said: ‘Safety In Action is an event which children really look forward to attending as they hear about how much fun it is. However, we are keen to ensure there is lots of learning too, which as a result will reduce the number of accidents amongst children.’
She added: ‘Before the event, each child completes a safety quiz which we then mark. This enables the workshop leaders to ensure that their delivery is filling any gaps in a child’s knowledge. When the children return to school in September, following the summer break, they complete the same quiz again which allows us to see how much they have learned. We then visit schools to give out certificates to those children who have done really well and award schools with trophies for achievement in individual workshops, as well as an overall winner’s cup.’
‘This year, as it’s our 20thanniversary, we have developed a key ring for the children, which includes a QR code for easy access to our website and on the reverse it has an important reminder message from each of the workshops which the children attended,’ concluded Miss Le Tensorer.
After the event, children will be given a CAPJ goody bag, which contains information they have learned throughout the day, as well as a number of goodies from partner services and other concerned organisations.
