As a parent, carer, child or young person there are lots of things you need to know and think about to ensure safety in the home, at school, on the streets or whilst surfing the internet.

Safety in the Home

The Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) claim that every year over 2 million children are taken to a hospital after having an accident, and around half of these accidents happen in the home. But these are only the accidents known about, and it is thought that many more children are hurt in accidents but are treated at home or by a family doctor so they are not counted in official statistics.

The CAPT website provides safety advice by age groups because they believe there is a lot we can do to prevent serious injuries particularly if we understand the links between accidents and a child's development. 

Also the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) provides some very useful information and tips on how to prevent many of the accidents which happen to children particularly in the home. 

At School and on the Streets

During consultation events for the Children and Young People's Plan (CYPP) almost 6000 children and young people in Wakefield expressed what their priorities for action were.  These children and young people ranging from 4 - 19 years old were clear and consistent in their message to the Local Authority, they wanted a reduction in bullying, help to make them feel safe and support for them to have a healthy lifestyle (see Live Life Safe). 

These are just a couple of the 50 plus rights that children have under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (see Related Downloads for full list), and is consistent with the vision of the Wakefield District Safeguarding Children Board which '...strives to keep children and young people in the Wakefield district safe from harm.'

Safe Surfing

The internet has become a valuable part of everyday life for many children, but parents are rightly concerned about the dangers it can pose. There are a number of steps you can take but perhaps the single most important thing is to ensure your children always talk to you about what they are looking at on the internet and any problems they encounter.

So for information and advice about how to stay in control whilst surfing the internet the Think U Know link provides useful information about chatting online, email, chat rooms, online forums, social networking and cyber bullying.  Also the Live Life Safe site has some useful personal safety tips for using the internet.  With the increasing popularity of social network sites used by children and young people like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook you need to be alert to the dangers and the Blog Safety Parent Guide provides useful advice.

One way of ensuring the content of searches on the internet doesn't contain any adult material is to use child friendly search engines. The following are a couple of child friendly search engines, they are www.yahooligans.com (see Kids Yahoo) and www.ajkids.com (the junior version of Ask Jeeves, see Ask Kids).  A list of others can be found by following the Safe Kids link.

The Click Clever Click Safe document (see Related Downloads) sets out what the UK Council for Child Internet Safety has done so far to keep children safe online. It also sets out the council's commitments to parents, children and young people.

To help you find relevant information the Families Information Service has provided a number of links to various websites and helplines where you can find lots of information, advice and support.

However, if you are unable to find the information you need just contact the FIS on 0800 587 8042 and one of our information team will be on hand to help you.

Health Notice

Swine Flu
All children over 6 months and under five years of age are now being offered the swine flu vaccine.  For further information see Swine Flu in Related Links or call 0800 1513 513.