PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Safe at Home scheme helps 130,000 families across England
R
oSPA’s Safe At Home scheme has now helped more than 130,000
families across England, fitting home safety equipment and performing safety checks in homes.
Since February 2009, when Safe At Home - the national home safety equipment scheme - was launched, more than 25,000 safety “kits” have been fitted in homes, with the project meeting or exceeding its targets for June and July 2010.
In addition to distributing safety equipment, Safe At Home provides 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. Safe At Home has also produced a height chart, available to families free of charge.
At the last count 353,062 height charts and 6,652 DVDs had been distributed to families who needed them.
The aim of Safe At Home is to reduce accident rates among under-fives through targeted support for families in 141 areas in England with the highest accident rates.
Support includes the provision of information and equipment, such as safety gates, fireguards and window restrictors, through a network of new and existing local home safety equipment schemes. RoSPA, a safety charity, is training staff working at the local schemes.
Jul/Aug 10
More than 100 local schemes are now up and running and a long- term objective of Safe At Home is to build the capacity of local communities to run their own sustainable projects after the national scheme comes to an end in March 2011.
Sheila Merrill, RoSPA’s home safety manager for England, said: “It’s great to see that so many families have been positively affected by the Safe at Home scheme, which continues to go from strength to strength.
“As well as providing equipment and resources, the scheme has now trained 3,677 local front line staff to go into homes and educate parents and carers and 1,443 Sure Start groups are now participating. This is a fantastic achievement!”
To receive equipment, families with children aged 0-5 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 discounts).
RoSPA (the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) was selected to run Safe At Home by the former Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education).
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