Keeping our kids safe

Kidsafe Taranaki is a charitable trust that was formed to reduce unintentional injuries to children in Taranaki. 
 
The organisation was founded 25 years ago by Paediatrician Dr Alan Parsons, who noticed a significant number of children being admitted to the children’s ward with injuries.
 
“We plan and coordinate community projects on priority injury issues to reduce the incidence and severity of unintentional injuries to children in Taranaki,” said Dr Stephen Butler, Chairperson of Kidsafe Taranaki.

“We looked at the data trends on why children were admitted to hospital with injuries so we could determine what the main causes were for injury and what we could do to prevent them."
 
Stephen said getting funding for Kidsafe Taranaki's programmes is a challenge. 

Toi Foundation provided a grant of $49,000 to enable the organisation to continue its programmes in the community. 
 
Kidsafe Taranaki is a collaborative organisation with representatives from Taranaki District Health Board, ACC, Plunket, Tui Ora, and New Plymouth District Council. The programmes include a safety gate loan scheme and car seat fitting clinics. The organisation also works with Tui Ora to deliver an in-home fall prevention workshop.
 
“Without the funding, we would not have been able to keep going. Fundamentally, the grant enables us to keep functioning and keep delivering our messages out there to the community and to reduce harm for our children. We reached around 500 Taranaki families in the last year," Stephen said.
 
“When we look at the data, we see that there has been a reduction in the number of admissions due to injury. We want to keep going so we can evaluate and see how we can reach more families."