Patterns and causes of school injuries are poorly understood, and resources to help public health and education professionals address injuries are scarce. Injury events are not consistently tracked, and it is often difficult to identify who has responsibility for preventing a recurrence. Currently, no comprehensive guidelines are available for school administrators and other health and education professionals interested in addressing the problem of injuries in the school environment. Thus, schools need to begin by assessing the causes of injuries within individual schools in order to target the leading causes of injury and to prevent them. State maternal and child health practitioners and other injury control experts can provide information and technical assistance to schools interested in developing and evaluating the impact of school-based injury prevention activities.
Schools have an important role to play in addressing the problem of child and adolescent injuries.
The Children's Safety Network has designed this packet to inform school personnel, injury prevention professionals, parents, and others about the extent of the problem of injuries in the school environment and to stimulate dialogue about possible solutions. The photographs in this publication illustrate settings and circumstances where students may be injured. You may want to examine these and other settings in your school to identify additional hazards. We encourage you to distribute this packet or any of its parts to school nurses, school health personnel, other relevant professionals, and community organizations. We would appreciate hearing how you use this information, suggestions of additional resources of which we should be aware, and work you may be initiating in this area.