Free child safety improvements for Walsall families

Families throughout Walsall are to be offered free home safety improvements as part of a major new safety campaign launched jointly by RoSPA, Walsall Children’s Services Serco and Black Country Housing Group (BCHG).

Care & Repair, at BCHG, has teamed up with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), a safety charity, to provide the equipment fitting service in Walsall for the Safe At Home national home safety equipment scheme.

Safe At Home has been set up to help families take steps to prevent accidents involving under-fives through the provision of home safety advice and equipment. Accidents in the home are the biggest cause of injury to children under five.

Walsall Children’s Services Serco, in partnership with Walsall Children’s Centres, is inviting families to get in touch if they are interested in benefiting from the Safe At Home scheme. Families should contact their local Children’s Centre to see if they qualify for safety equipment such as safety gates, window restrictors and fireguards loaned out and fitted free of charge. Accident prevention advice is also available through the scheme, including through an online film.

BCHG staff who are skilled and experienced in a range of building trades, as well as being first aid trained and Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) checked, are providing the equipment fitting service throughout the 16-month scheme.

Lesa Kingham, Head of Care & Repair, said: “We are delighted to provide this much needed service for families in Walsall. Fitting small and simple preventative home improvements such as a safety gate or fireguards really does make a difference to keeping families and their children safe at home.”

Kim Stokes, Early Years Improvement Manager at Walsall Children’s Services Serco, said: “Children’s Centre staff have completed accredited RoSPA training to ensure that families in Walsall are given the best possible advice to help reduce accidents in the home. Families will also be invited to attend accident prevention sessions, supported by Children’s Centre staff, in which they can find out how best to use safety equipment.”

Sarah Brent, RoSPA’s Regional Safe At Home Co-ordinator for the West Midlands, said: “There are measures parents can take to make their homes as safe as necessary, without going over the top. Various items of safety equipment can help when children are young, and Safe At Home will benefit families who have not been able to fit this equipment until now. We are delighted to be working with BCHG’s Care & Repair service to bring this scheme to Walsall.”

BCHG’s Care & Repair service received a commendation earlier this year for Excellence in Delivering Handyperson Services award from Foundations, the national body for home improvement agencies.

Helping families with small children represents a major expansion in the work of BCHG’s Care & Repair service, which has been helping mainly older and disabled homeowners throughout the Black Country to continue to lead independent lives in their own homes as a Home Improvement Agency for almost 20 years.

Safe At Home is helping disadvantaged families in areas with the highest accident rates in England.

According to the Audit Commission’s ‘Better Safe Than Sorry Report’ of February 2007, young children of parents who are long-term unemployed or who have never worked are 13 times more likely to die as a result of unintentional injury and 37 more times more like to die from exposure to smoke, fire or flames than those whose parents are in higher managerial or professional occupations.

Care & Repair can be contacted on 0121 561 3845 or www.bcha.co.uk

See www.safeathome.rospa.com for more information about Safe At Home and to view the accident prevention film.