Our vision

Fewer Injuries. Healthier Children. A Safer Canada.

Our mission

To lead and inspire a culture of safety across the country using a comprehensive and innovative approach.

In pursuit of these goals Safe Kids Canada will:

• Raise awareness
• Develop strategic partnerships
• Broker knowledge
• Advocate to prevent serious injuries among children, youth and families.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of children are rushed to emergency departments and doctors offices around the country after suffering injuries sustained from incidents in the home, school yard, swimming pool, and roadways. Most of these injuries can be prevented.

Background

Safe Kids Canada was founded in 1992, by Dr. David Wesson, a surgeon at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), who realized that many of his medical cases were caused by incidents that were predictable and preventable. He was looking for a way to help parents keep their kids safe and to change the environments where kids live, learn and play. Safe Kids Canada was established as a result of his search.

Focus

Safe Kids Canada’s mission is to lead and inspire a culture of safety across the country in order to reduce unintentional injuries, the leading cause of death among children and youth in Canada. As a national leader, Safe Kids Canada uses a collaborative and innovative approach to develop partnerships, conduct research, educate and advocate to prevent serious injuries among children, youth and their families.

Approach

We use a multi-faceted health promotion approach to increase knowledge, influence attitudes and motivate change in order to keep kids safe. Evidence-based practices, strategic partnerships, advocacy and social marketing form the basis for all of our injury prevention activities and programs.

Safe Kids Canada is committed to ensuring that injury prevention programs, policies and messages are evidence-based – this means that we promote strategies that are proven to be effective – like promoting the use of bike helmets to prevent head injuries.  We use a range of knowledge translation strategies that help turn research into information and programs that are credible and effective in advancing safety and reducing the burden of injuries to Canada’s children and youth. As knowledge brokers, we build capacity within the injury prevention sector by building bridges that facilitate interactions between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and the public.  

Our partners deliver these health promotion and prevention programs to meet the unique needs of their communities in our mutual efforts to keep kids safe where they live, learn, travel and play. We work with over 2,000 organizations across Canada to conduct research, raise awareness, educate families and advocate for safer environments to protect children from injury.

Through our website and Safe Tip Line, each year we respond to more than 2,500 calls and e-mails from parents, caregivers and health professionals looking for safety information and resources.

Safe Kids Canada is the national injury prevention program of The Hospital for Sick Children and a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global movement to prevent childhood injury.