Senior Care SafetyGuard against falls:- Install rails along the staircase, in the bathroom.
- Secure windows, block stairways, and lock doors.
- Replace unstable or slippery rugs and runners.
- Ensure the floor is always clean, clear, and dry
Children Care Safety
- General Tips: Children Care
- Check references with other families, friends, and neighbor
- Drop-in unexpectedly
- Ask your children about the experience
- Check the national sex offender registry at https://www.nsopw.gov
- Safety Tips to Teach Children
- Their name, address, telephone number
- How to use the telephone
- Whose homes they may visit when you’re not there
- Where they may and may not go in the neighborhood
- In case of an Emergency: How to reach you?
- Cell phone, work phone
- Who else they may call
- Neighbors, family members, other trusted adults
- Do you know where your children are?
- Know their daily habits
- Know their friends
- Check in with them
- Have them check in with you
- Make sure they are supervised when outside and away from home
- Listen and Observe
- Where don’t they want to go?
- Who don’t they want to see?
- Is someone showing them too much attention?
- Has their behavior or attitude changed?
- Precautionary Measures:
- Take color photographs every 6 months
- Keep a description of your child
- Keep copies of your child’s fingerprints
- Consider having a DNA sample taken from your child
- Know where your child’s medical records are located
- General Tips for Adults: Stranger-Danger Myth
- Do not confuse your children with the concept of strangers
- Statistically incorrect
- Kids don’t “get it”
- Adults don’t model it
- Inability to access help
- Home Alone Safety: Teach Children
- Not to open the door unless you have instructed them it is okay in each and every instance
- Not to tell anyone they are home alone
- Potentially Dangerous Situations:Teach Children
- How to recognize and avoid potentially dangerous situations
- To say NO and make a scene
- To immediately get out of these situations
- To immediately tell you or another trusted adult if something happens
- Camps: Questions to Ask
- Do they complete a background screening check on the individuals working with children?
- Is there constant adult supervision of children including when on field trips and at off-site activities?
- Childcare Facilities: Questions to Ask
- Is the facility licensed?
- Are all staff members trained?
- Can parents/guardians come and go as they wish?
- Can you visit and observe the personnel several times before making a decision?
- Can you visit unannounced after placement?
- Vehicle Safety: Teach Children
- Never to approach or enter a vehicle, occupied or not, unless accompanied by you or another trusted adult
- Remember most children are victimized by someone they know, love, or trust.
