Safe Kids Fulton County: A Program Evaluation
Creators: name: Zimmerman, Jamie
Publisher: name: Georgia State University
Year: 2015

description: Background: Worldwide it is reported that 830,000 children die from unintentional injury every year. Of these deaths, approximately 260,000 deaths are in conjunction with motor vehicle crashes. Another 10 to 30 million children and adults are affected by non-fatal deaths in correlation with motor vehicle crashes. In 2011, the CDC reported that in the United States almost 200,000 children were injured in motor vehicle crashes while 650 children, age 12 and younger, died from unintentional injury in motor vehicle accidents.  It was also reported that 33% of children that died in the motor vehicle accidents were not properly administering child passenger safety laws regarding booster seats or seat belts. Safe Kids Worldwide consists of 450 coalitions for unintentional injury regarding poison control, fire and home safety and child passenger safety. All coalitions strive to provide education and relay prevention methods through educating adults and children, conducting research and creating safe environments.  This strategy has led to Safe Kids helping to reduce 40% of the injury death rate in the United States. Safe Kids Fulton County is a branch of Safe Kids Worldwide and has thrived in implementing the Child Passenger Safety Course (CPSC), which serves in all of Fulton County in Georgia. The CPSC partners with the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness to implement evidence-based programs on safety workshops, hands on training and educational courses based on the county needs.

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the Child Passenger Safety Course (CPSC), which is administered by Safe Kids Fulton County Child Passenger Safety Coalition. This evaluation will provide insight into how the program is implemented, if the participants are being reached as intended and the participant’s reactions to what the course has to offer. Using client satisfaction surveys administered following the CPSC, data analysis will answer several key questions about the course itself and assist in providing recommendations to Safe Kids Fulton County program to strengthen their programming. This evaluation will aide Safe Kids Fulton County in their efforts to continue the decrease of unintentional child injury.

Methodology:  An 8-question survey was given to parents and caregivers as a way to understand their satisfaction levels regarding staff, information obtained, overall experience and future recommendations for the course. An additional three questions were asked regarding age, sex and race. Descriptive statistics were run for each survey question and explained with the associated demographic factors.  The data was divided in Excel by the corresponding questions from the satisfaction survey. From Excel the data was then downloaded to SPSS version 21.0. The data involved in this study was collected from April 2014 to February 2015 from a total of 8 safety courses.

Results: The class satisfaction rates based on the survey were high and had little variation.  Based on the results presented, participants answered the questions with a majority response of “very good” and “strongly agree.” The recorded results indicated that participants liked the program because they also reported that no changes needed to made and had very few suggestions for improvement. Based on the evaluations results, the class proved to be a beneficial component to the parents and caregivers knowledge and skill levels. The results showed, based on the ethnic/racial breakdown and by recorded zip codes, that the class was reaching those that need the help the most.

Conclusion: This evaluation found high levels of positive course satisfaction feedback regarding the staff, information obtained, and recommendations for future courses from caregivers or parents who participated in the Fulton County Safe Kids Child Safety Passenger Course. Most importantly, the level of ease to obtain information during the course and the value of the information obtained had high percentages of positive feedback. The information can be used for future courses conducted by Safe Kids Coalitions and other child passenger safety organizations and awareness programs. The results show the appreciation and satisfactions rates of those who had the opportunity to participate in the course.