Helping families stop serious accidents lies at the heart of Child Safety Week, an annual awareness campaign run by the  Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT). As our foster families care for children from 0-18 years, it is important that they know how to prevent any accidents from occurring in the home. 

As a fostering agency, we care deeply about child safety and want to provide our foster carers with as much advice as possible. The theme for this year’s Child Safety Week is Safety In Mind. Accidents are less likely to occur when parents and carers know the risks and know what changes they need to make around the home to keep babies and children safe. 

This Child Safety Week, we wanted to share some useful resources, created by CAPT, to help you make your home as safe an environment as possible. The truth is, the majority of household accidents involving children can be avoided. A minor accident may just require a plaster to make it all better, but there are cases where accidents at home have led to fatalities. Government statistics show approximately 60 children under 5 die from accidents in the home each year and there are around 40,000 hospital admissions annually for this same age group. 

We know our foster carers work hard to keep the children and young people in their care as safe as possible, but the more accident prevention knowledge they have the better. These resources are useful for all parents, foster carers and anyone who looks after children regularly.

5 resources to help reduce child accidents in the home 

Here are some fact sheets from CAPT, sharing all the important information about the most common household accidents and how they can be prevented.

Choking 

Fires 

Poisoning 

Falls 

Drowning 

This is not an extensive list of all the potential risks around the home, for more resources visit the CAPT website. However, the accidents listed above are five of the most common household accidents that can be avoided with just a few preventative measures. This Child Safety Week, we have shared this information to help out foster carers build a better understanding of the risks around their home and what steps they may need to take to create a safer environment for the children in their care. 

At Focus Foster Care, it is a compulsory requirement that all our foster carers undertake Paediatric First Aid training as soon as possible post approval and thereafter every three years as a minimum to ensure knowledge and skills are up to date in this crucial area. 

To learn more about Child Safety Week and access fact sheets, advice and activities, visit https://www.capt.org.uk .

If you are interested in joining our independent fostering agency, please contact our team. We are currently seeking new foster carers in the West Midlands and surrounding areas.