Hospital:
Children's Memorial Hospital
Location:
Chicago, Illinois
Contact:
Elizabeth Wolcott, 773-880-3350
Program Name:
Kohl's Cares for Kids Safety Network
Program Summary:
The goal of the Kohl's Cares for Kids Safety Network is to implement innovative, community-based and data driven interventions aimed at prevention and risk reduction of unintentional injuries for children in their homes, neighborhoods and communities. The programs of the Kohl's Cares for Kids Safety Network include:
- Safe at Home: an initiative to reduce the number of injury-causing household dangers.
- Stop the Falls: a public transportation advertising campaign aimed at preventing children from falling out of windows.
- Safe at Play: an initiative to increase awareness of playground safety and create a network of safe places to play.
The following components are part of these programs: distribution of free Kohl's Safe at Home bags through community partner organizations; a Stop the Falls media campaign on Chicago Transit Authority rail and bus lines, building new playgrounds to the latest Consumer Products Safety Council standards and inspecting the safety of playgrounds throughout Chicago.
All of the network's programs are framed with information from the hospital's Child Health Data Lab, which gathers and analyzes data on the causes of injuries, the circumstances in which they occur and the populations most vulnerable to them.
Success measurements of the overall program and its reach into your community:
Safe at Home:We track the number and location of Safe at Home bags distributed. In addition, through a partnership with the Chicago Department of Public Health Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, a portion of the Safe at Home bags are directly distributed to at-risk families whose residences are being tested for lead contamination. For these families, we not only track the distribution of the bags, but also follow up to track how each family uses the bag's products in their home.
Stop the Falls:We track the rate of window falls in the Chicago area. Because it is important that our prevention message be repeated every year to reach new parents and new immigrants, we also track the number of impressions generated through the Chicago Transit Authority bus and rail media campaign.
Safe at Home:We track the total number of children served by the playgrounds we build and inspect. In addition, upon inspection, our staff records a safety score for each Chicago Park District playground. We evaluate these safety scores yearly to ensure that playgrounds inspected the previous year have improved based upon our recommendations.
Successful tactics for making our program known in our community:
- Displaying the Kohl's logo whenever possible within our Kohl's Cares for Kids Safety Network programs (on Safe at Home bags, on signage at all playgrounds built by Associates in Action volunteers and on Stop the Falls brochures and advertisements).
- Involving the Kohl's Associates in Action whenever possible at Kohl's Cares for Kids Safety Network events, Children's Memorial fundraising events and throughout the hospital. We receive over $40,000 in Associates in Action grants each year, which represents over 1,700 volunteer hours. Through this, the community is used to seeing Associates in Action volunteers involved with and connected to the hospital.
- Unpaid Media: Combining the power of our brands to gain media attention. We have had great success with area morning news shows when we offer to bring our physician injury prevention experts in to talk about safety issues and give tips regarding the Kohl's Cares for Kids Safety Network. Having Kohl's volunteers and KC merchandise involved in these media events adds extra interest to these segments for our media partners.
- Paid Media: Our Chicago Transit Authority rail and bus Stop the Falls campaign has been extremely successful, reaching more than 86 million riders each summer in Chicago.
Parent Advice Library:
http://www.childrensmemorial.org/kids_doc/advice/overview.aspx
