Project aims to make children safer living in their own homes

PARENTS are being urged to protect their children by taking advantage of a project aimed at reducing the number of home accidents among under-fives in Leeds.

Leeds City Council's Early Years Service is operating the Safe At Home scheme via 58 children's centres across the city.

More than 100 staff have been trained to assess the homes of families that have been referred. Since the project got off the ground in January it has given away more than 700 of the 2,500 home safety sets available to it.

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Social regeneration organisation Crestra has been instrumental in helping to install the equipment.

The initiative builds on a similar accident prevention scheme that had been backed in Leeds by Sure Start.

Since February 2009, when Safe At Home – the national home safety equipment scheme for England – was launched, more than 23,000 families have been identified to receive equipment from the project.

The aim is to reduce accident rates among young children through targeted support for disadvantaged families in 141 areas in England with the highest accident rates.

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Support includes the provision of information and equipment, such as safety gates, fireguards and window restrictors, through a network of local home safety equipment schemes.

Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, (RoSPA), is training staff working at the local schemes and a long-term objective of Safe At Home is to build the capacity of local communities to run their own schemes.

To receive equipment, families with children aged 0-5 years must live in an area covered by a participating project. They must also be in receipt of one of the following benefits: Income support; job seeker's allowance (income based); income based employment and support allowance; tax credits – if one of the partners receives tax credit and has a valid NHS tax exemption certificate; disability living allowance care or mobility component for a disabled child; housing benefit; or, council tax benefit (not council tax discounts).

Sheila Merrill, RoSPA's home safety manager for England, said: "Safe At Home is designed to help parents across England take action to make their homes safer." She encouraged eligible families in the area to find out more.

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Maureen Parks, the Safe At Home co-ordinator for the Leeds Early Years Service, said: "Here in Leeds we have trained 115 staff across our children's services to carry out home safety advice and assessment sessions.

"This enables families to access the equipment through the scheme and gain knowledge and advice which will make the home environment safer for young children."

The evidence shows that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be injured or killed in accidents.

Children of parents who are long-term unemployed or who have never worked are 13 times more likely to die as a result of unintentional injury and 37 times more likely to die from exposure to smoke, fire or flames than children of parents in higher managerial or professional occupations.

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In addition to providing safety equipment, the scheme provides safety information and support to as many families with children under five as possible.

A website has been developed and a DVD has been produced which is now available to view on the website and at local children's centres.

Anyone interested in the the Safe At Home scheme in Leeds, should call 0113 247 6812. See www.safeathome.rospa.com/schemes/where_live.htm for more details about Safe At Home.