It may be one of the worst fears of any child care provider -- a serious accident happening in your home, an accident which might injure or even kill a child in your care. Sadly, many accidents do befall children in day care, and studies show that family-based child care and day care centers can be very hazardous for our little ones.
Safety must always be a central element in the professionalism of your caregiving. Identifying potential hazards in your child care environment is a big step towards providing top-quality care for the children.
Nationwide research by insurance companies into the injuries of children in different child care settings shows that the basic responsibility of our job as child care workers is in the name: child care. We have a challenge. The Number One injury of the child is self-inflicted.
Research shows that the rate of accidental injury for children in child care varies with the type of child care setting. It is tempting -- even comforting -- to think of the home-based setting as being "safe." Unfortunately, statistics show just the opposite: Home-based care can be the most hazardous setting of all:
- The rate of children having accidents which require medical attention were 4.16 per 100 children for those in family child care and centers.
- For children attending university centers, the rate was much lower, only 0.86 per 100.
- For kids who attend public schools, the rate was lower stillÑ only 0.25 per 100.
Outdoors, accidents are most likely to occur on:
- Steps,
- Pools, and
- During field trips.
The most likely sites for accidents indoors were found to be:
- Doorways,
- Hallways, and
- Bathrooms.
In terms of the frequency of injury:
- The top cause of accidents in child care settings is falls, at 47%.
- Bumps and collisions come in second, at 20%.
- Human bites accounted for 8% of all the accidents, with most of these being self-inflicted.
The types of injuries and the peak times for those types of injuries to occur have also been analyzed:
- Bruises and scrapes are the most frequent: 73% of these occur on the head and 14% on the arms.
- The peak times for kids' accidents appear to be in between 10:00 am and noon.
- Coming in second in terms of danger are the hours of 3:00 to 5:00 pm.
Child care professionals can take preventive measures in the following ways:
- Environmental modifications. You can take several steps to change the way your child care facility is laid out and operates. Always be on guard for situations, objects, and conditions which can pose a danger to the children.
- Safety awareness. Keep alert to safety issues. Look for training (such as CPR or fire prevention) which can equip you to better protect the children from hazards.
- Careful supervision. Exercising good supervision of the kids in your care is always a key to their safety. Without your personal supervision, all the other safety precautions may be useless.
From the March, 1994, issue of The Teddy Bear.
