Name Blas, Frencee Gayle F.

2 BECED- A
:
Bumagat, Trisha Kate S.
Mesias, Jessa Mae Angelica T.
Natividad, Irish H.
Lontoc, Stephen Marc T.

2S-ECED09: SCIENCE, HEALTH, NUTRITION AND SAFETY

Chapter 2: Preventing Injury & Protecting Children’s Safety

OBJECTIVES:
1. Explain what Active Supervision
active supervision - Most effective strategy for creating a safe environment and
is and what it preventing injuries in young children.
might look like. - It transforms supervision from a passive approach to an active
skill.
- Requires focused attention and intentional observation of
children at all times.

Here, staff position themselves so that they can observe all of the
children; watching, counting, and listening at all times. During
transition, staff account for all children with name-to-face
recognition by visually identifying each child. They also use
their knowledge of each child’s development and abilities to
anticipate what they will do, then get involved and redirect them
when necessary.

2. Discuss how to Culture of Safety

create a culture of - Adults who can be fully present will keep children physically
safety. and emotionally safe and thriving.
- Experts and researchers have demonstrated that the culture of
an organization plays a key role in all successful safety
initiatives. This is done by involving every staff member and
committing to safety at all levels.
- The goal is to create environments where there is zero harm,
making it as hard as possible for things to go wrong.

Culture- the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices

that characterize a program; the way things work in that program
and in that community.

10 Actions for a Culture of Safety

1. Use Data to Make Decisions
2. Actively Supervise
3. Keep Environments Safe and Secure
4. Make Playgrounds Safe
 5. Transport Children Safely
6. Transport Children Safely
7. Be Aware of Changes that Impact Safety
8. Model Safe Behaviors
9. Teach Families about Safety
10. Know Your Children and Families

3. Identify Car crashes, suffocation, drowning, poisoning, fires, and falls are
common risks that some of the most common ways children are hurt or killed.
lead to injury in
children. Using data from 2000- 2006, the CDC determined that:
● For children less than 1 year of age, two-thirds of injury
deaths were due to suffocation.
● Drowning was the leading cause of injury death between 1
and 4 years of age.
● Falls were the leading cause of nonfatal injury for all age
groups of less than 15 years of age.
● For children ages 0 to 9, the next two leading causes were
being struck by or against an object and animal bites or
insect stings.
● Rates for fires or burns and drowning were highest for
children 4 years and younger.

4. Describe how Injuries in child care settings remain a serious, but preventable,
understanding health care issue.
injuries can help
create a safety Sudden Infant Death
plan that prevents
future injury.  Always put infants to sleep on their backs
 Cribs, bassinets, and play yards should conform to safety
standards and covered in a tight-fitting sheet
 There should be no fluffy blankets, pillows, toys, or soft
objects in the sleeping area
 Don’t allow children to overheat

Choking

 Keeping objects smaller than 1½ inches out of reach of

infants, toddlers, and young children.
 Have children stay seated while eating
 Cut food into small bites
 Ensure children only have access to age-appropriate toys and
materials

Drowning

 Make sure caregivers are trained in CPR

 Fence off pools; gates should be self-closing and self-
latching
 Supervise children in or near water20
 Inspect for any standing water indoors or outdoors that is an
inch or deeper.
 Teach children water safety behaviors.21

Burns

 Have working smoke alarms

 Practice fire drills
 Never leave food cooking on the stove unattended; supervise
any use of microwave
 Make sure the water heater is set to 120 degrees or lower
 Keep chemicals, cleaners, lighters, and matches securely
locked and out of reach of children. • Use child-proof plugs
in outlets and supervise all electrical appliance usage

Falls

 Make sure playground surfaces are safe, soft, and made of

impactabsorbing material (such as wood chips or sand) at an
appropriate depth and are well maintained
 Use safety devices (such as gates to block stairways and
window guards)
 Make sure children are wearing protective gear during sports
and recreation (such as bicycle helmets)
 Supervise children around fall hazards at all times Use straps
and harnesses on infant equipment.

Poisoning

 Lock up all medications and toxic products (such as cleaning

solutions and detergents) in original packaging out of sight
and reach of children
 Know the number to poison control (1-800-222-1222)
 Read and follow labels of all medications
 Safely dispose of unused, unneeded, or expired prescription
drugs and over the counter drugs, vitamins, and supplements
 Use safe food practices

Pedestrian

 Do not allow children under 10 to walk near traffic without

an adult
 Increase the number of supervising adults when walking
near traffic
 Teach children about safety including:
o Walking on the sidewalk
o Not assuming vehicles see you or will stop
o Crossing only in crosswalks
o Looking both ways before crossing
o Never playing in the road
 Motor-vehicle

 Children should still be safely restrained in a five-point

harnessed car seat
 Children should be in back seat
 Children should not be seated in front of an airbag

5. Summarize Safety education involves teaching safe actions while helping

strategies children understand the possible consequences of unsafe
teachers can use behavior.
to help children
learn about their Here are some strategies that teachers can use to help children
own safety. learn about safety:

- Incorporate safety into the daily routine.

- Involve children in creating rules
- Provide coaching and gentle reminders to help children follow
safety rules.
- Acknowledge children’s self-initiated actions to keep
themselves and others safe (such
as pushing chairs in and wiping up spills)
- Provide time for children to practice safety skills (such as
buckling seat belts)
- Introduce safety concepts and behaviors in simple steps.
- Role-play safety-helpers.
- Define emergency and practice what children should do in
emergency situations.
- Introduce safety signs.
- Incorporate musical activities and safety songs.

6. Recall several Engaging Families

ways to engage
family in safety - Share written and visual safety messages with families through
education. newsletters, brochures, bulletin boards, Web pages, and take-
home activities in the home languages of the families in the
program. Emphasize safety issues that relate to your preschool
program and community

- Integrate parent information with children’s learning about

topics such as poisoning prevention and traffic safety.

- Provide safety information through workshops and during

parent meetings; include information on a variety of topics,
especially those that involve higher risk in specific communities,
such as water safety, gun safety, or lead poisoning.

- Invite community safety personnel to participate in workshops

and share resources and information about how to access
community services.
 - Address specific safety issues, such as vehicle safety and
pedestrian safety, through one-on-one guidance during pickup
and drop-off times.

- During family conferences, find out what messages family

members would like teachers to reinforce at school.

- During home visits, offer to help families identify potential

hazards in their family environment and ways to reduce possible
injury.

- Post emergency plans on family bulletin boards and provide

families with a written copy of the preschool program’s
emergency plan. Include responses to different scenarios (e.g.,
evacuation, shelters), location of the designated evacuation
shelter, and a number to call if family members cannot reach the
preschool.

- Routinely update families’ emergency contact information.

- Encourage families to plan and practice emergency drills for

fires, earthquakes, floods, violent encounters, or other situations
that could occur in their home or community. Provide families
with resources to develop a home evacuation plan and drill.

- Invite family members to attend the preschool or to serve as

guest speakers as children learn about people who can help in
emergency situations. Invited guests may include safety or
medical personnel (e.g., firefighters, paramedics) or workers in
related professions (e.g., construction workers, electricians,
meteorologists, cleaning businesses).

7. Analyze the - Injury prevention plays a key role in promoting

value of allowing children’s safety, which is considered to involve keeping
risk play. children free from the occurrence or risk of injury.
However, emerging research suggests that imposing too
many restrictions on children’s outdoor risky play may
be hampering their development. Like safety, play is
deemed so critical to child development and their
physical and mental health that it is included in Article
31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. Thus, limitations on children’s play opportunities
may be fundamentally hindering their health and well-
being.
- Eager and Little describe a risk deprived child as more
prone to problems such as obesity, mental health
concerns, lack of independence, and a decrease in
learning, perception and judgment skills, created when
risk is removed from play and restrictions are too high.
- Families, caregivers, and educators can work to create a
balance by fostering opportunities to engage in outdoor
risky play that align with safety efforts. An approach that
focuses on eliminating hazards, that have hidden
potential to injure, such as a broken railing, but that does
not eliminate all risks, could be used. This allows the
child to recognize and evaluate the challenge and decide
on a course of action that is not dangerous but may still
involve an element of risk. Adults can also provide
children with unstructured (open-ended) play materials
that can be freely manipulated in conventional
playgrounds. This approach is a central component of the
Adventure Playground movement. Notably, European
and Australian organizations and researchers appear to be
attempting to put this idea in practice, with North
American efforts lagging.
- Children as safe as necessary, not as safe as possible.