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(April 24, 2009, ST. PAUL, MN) – Looking for help with choosing and installing the right car seat for your child? How about a fun, activity-filled site for children that’s not only safe to visit, but can help keep them safer from injuries? In support of National Safe Kids Week, April 26 - May 3, Safe Kids Minnesota, coordinated by the Minnesota Safety Council, encourages parents and children to find helpful safety information and interactive learning experiences on the following sites:
- The child passenger safety Web site, www.carseatsmadesimple.org, recognized for excellence by Safe Kids Worldwide and the National Safety Council, offers solutions to parents and other caregivers who face a confusing array of child safety restraint choices and installation options. The multi-lingual site provides information about common errors, installation checklists, and a summary of Minnesota’s child passenger safety law in Spanish, Hmong and Somali as well as English. It also links to "how-to" videos for each type of child passenger restraint, based on a child’s age and size. The site was developed by Safe Kids Minnesota, the Minnesota Safety Council and AAA Clubs of Minnesota.
- Preventing injuries to children is the focus of www.safe-a-rooni.org, which combines education and play to raise awareness of unintentional ("accidental") injury risks and reinforce safer choices. The Safe-a-RooniJ site also contains information that can help adults protect children from injury. The site invites children to take a "safety safari" ("cause it's a jungle out there!"). Safe-a-Rooni is populated with appealing animal characters, each focused on a key safety issue (for example traffic, fire, water, playground, home, etc.). An online scavenger hunt highlights important safety messages and leads children to all areas of the site. Interactive games guarantee variety and fun. Development of safety content for the site was coordinated by Safe Kids Minnesota, the Minnesota Safety Council, the St. Paul-Ramsey County Department of Public Health, and the St. Paul Department of Fire and Safety Services.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than six million unintentional injuries to children ages 0 to 14 in 2007 that required care in an emergency room. This translates into 12 injuries per minute – nearly all of which are preventable. Although the childhood injury death rate in the U.S. has dropped by 45 percent in the 22 years Safe Kids has been in operation, unintentional injury remains the leading cause of death and disability among children ages 1 to 14 in the U.S.
Safe Kids Minnesota works to prevent unintentional childhood injury, the leading killer of children 14 and under. It is a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing unintentional injury. Safe Kids Minnesota was founded in 1988 and is led by the Minnesota Safety Council.
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