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RoSPA - NEW RESEARCH PUBLISHED ON YOUNG PARENTS' ACCESS TO HOME SAFETY ADVICE

Teenage parents want better access to home safety information so they can take even greater steps towards keeping their children safe, show the findings of new research.

The research - “Investigating home safety amongst young parents” - was conducted by Zahida Begum, a young person working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It looked at how safety messages could be better tailored for young parents.

Zahida, 20, joined RoSPA as a “young advocate” through the Future Leaders programme, run by the Changemakers Foundation. Drawing on her experiences as the youngest in a large family, plus time spent with her siblings’ children, she was keen to find ways to raise young parents’ awareness of child safety issues within the home.

She organised four focus groups and workshops with 26 young people who are or were teenage parents. During the sessions, held in Birmingham and London, young parents said that it was “often easy to forget” about safety issues; and that although information was provided through health visitors and midwives it often didn’t get through. Some participants stated that they felt “desensitised” when they had been exposed to “too many” safety messages.

Based on her findings, Zahida, from Saltley, Birmingham, has recommended:

  • Increasing media coverage of home safety messages via channels that will reach young people, such as social networking
  • Implementing home and child safety sessions for 14-16-year-olds in schools
  • Encouraging young parents to design useful gadgets containing safety messages, such as fridge magnets
  • Including information about safety equipment in the Bounty pack that pregnant women receive
  • Introducing an automated text message service providing information and advice
  • Training young parents to spread safety messages to their peers.

Zahida said: “I feel the project was very important in relation to the community and our society especially during these difficult economic times. Many home safety projects have had funds cut. I strongly disagree with this because I feel that one of the most effective ways to save public money would be to invest in accident prevention rather than to deal with the expenses that are incurred after accidents, as these costs are not only tangible but cause thousands of people long term psychological and emotional distress.

“I also feel that the needs of young parents are at risk of being misunderstood. Having a good understanding of what they want and need will help in the designing of appropriate safety messages to reach them. I felt that this project gave them a chance to voice their concerns and it will hopefully go some way towards improving things in the future.”

Tom Mullarkey, RoSPA's chief executive, said: “This was a great piece of original work, thoughtfully scoped and expertly delivered. It has added to our knowledge and provided real insight into one of the most hard-to-reach issues we tackle at RoSPA, the real-life impact of our efforts. Zahida is to be congratulated on her excellent rigour and professional delivery."

Sheila Merrill, RoSPA’s home safety manager for England, who commissioned the research, said: “Zahida was friendly and enthusiastic. She carried out a very challenging piece of work with professionalism providing RoSPA with an excellent piece of research.”

The home is the most common location for an accident, with young children being particularly vulnerable. Half a million under-fives visit A&E in the UK each year after suffering an accident at home.

Zahida was RoSPA’s fourth young advocate and her report can be found at http://www.rospa.com/homesafety/Info/young-parents-report.pdf. The Future Leaders programme is designed for organisations which want to improve or increase the ways that they engage with young people.

 

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