Forging New Frontiers 2023

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the 28th Injury Free Coalition for Kids Annual Conference, Forging New Frontiers: Secure for Safety. The Injury Free family has continued to grow innovative strategies for injury prevention in our children's hospitals and communities. Through our publication of our annual meeting supplement in Injury Epidemiology, we continue to share our work with others.

This year our focus on "Secure for Safety" features a keynote session with Joe Colella, the Director of Child Passenger Safety for the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association. Joe has been a child safety advocate for three decades, and has assisted with related education in 48 states and 5 additional countries. His many roles include being a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers child restraint committee, the editorial board for Safe Ride News, and co-leading the Safe Kids in Automated Vehicles Alliance. This session on child passenger safety will be moderated by our own, Adrienne Gallardo, Program Manager for the OHSU Doernbecher Injury Prevention Program. Adrienne is the current chair of the Injury Free CPS Subcommittee.

Saturday morning, our panel on "What's Known, What's New and What's Needed in Injury prevention" will be moderated by Dr. Mike Levas, our incoming program chair for IFCK. The illustrious panelists are: Keisha Frasier Doh MD, Rohit Shenoi MD, Lorrie Lynn and Ashley Blanchard MD, MS.

Dr. Doh is a Pediatric Emergency Physician at Childrens' Healthcare of Atlanta and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Emory University. She is Co-Chair for Children's Injury Prevention Program (CHIPP) and Co-Chair of the intentional injury taskforce of CHIPP. She leads and helped establish a multi-disciplinary group that promotes firearm injury prevention by using the Asking Saves Kids (part of the AAP/Brady Campaign initiative) platform. She will be discussing firearm injuries.

Dr. Rohit Shenoi, Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and an Attending Physician in the Emergency Center at Texas Children's Hospital will be discussing water safety and drowning prevention. He is currently funded by a CDC grant to study subpopulations that experience higher rates of unintentional drowning and investigate the causes and outcomes of these disparities. He has authored several research articles in injury prevention, coauthored the AAP Policy Statement and Technical Report on drowning and was a contributor to the US National Water Safety Action Plan.

Lorrie Lynn has a Master's degree in sociology and 8 years' experience working as Director of Grants and Evaluation at the National Safety Council. She is Manager of Injury Prevention Programs within the Center for Healthier Communities at Rady Children's Hospital San Diego and site Coordinator for Injury Free Coalition for Kids and Coordinator for Safe Kids San Diego. Her many projects have addressed Safe Sleep for Infants, Window falls, Water Safety and Drowning Prevention, Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety, Child Passenger Safety and Teen Safe Driving. Lorrie is also a member of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids Board and is current co-chair for the Safe Sleep Committee. She will be sharing updates regarding sleep related injury prevention.

Special consideration for injury prevention is needed when addressing children with special needs such as autism. Dr. Ashley Blanchard is a pediatric emergency room physician and Assistant Professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She has a specific interest in injury prevention interventions targeted to unique populations with differential risk of injury (such as children and adults with autism). Her current work aims to describe epidemiologic trends in injuries among children with autism and the use of mobile health technology to reduce adolescent access to lethal means and prevent adolescent suicide.

We are excited to present this year's Pioneer Award to Dr .Kyran Quinlan to honor his successful career dedicated to injury prevention. The title of Dr. Quinlan's keynote is "Getting There Without A Map: Adventures in Child Injury Prevention." We are honored to hear his keynote presentation and to celebrate his lifetime commitment to injury prevention.

Putting together an exciting conference like ours takes many dedicated colleagues. A special thanks to the members of the Program Committee for their work organizing the conference. I thank the Scientific Publications Committee who have done an incredible job of reviewing abstracts. Thanks also go to the presenters, panelists, keynote speakers, and moderators for sharing their expertise with us. A special word of thanks to Walt, DiLenny, our President Marlene Melzer and our Associate Director Dr. Danielle Laraque Arena for their hard work and dedication to Injury Free and their extensive knowledge, technical expertise, and experience in putting on this conference.

Many thanks to the committees (& chairs) of IFCK that keep us connected all year long: the Social Media Committee (Maneesha Agarwal and Kristyn Jeffries), the Child Passenger Safety Committee (Adrienne Gallardo), the Firearm Safety Committee (Kirsten Bechtel, Sandra McKay), the Early Career Investigator Program ECIP (Ashley Blanchard), the Safe Sleep Committee (Lorrie Lynn, Shelby Crespi), the Awards Committee (Dilenny Roca-Dominquez, Steve Rogers) and the NIPD Committee (Dilenny Roca-Dominquez).

Thank you to the fabulous Garry Lapidus for keeping our Drum Karaoke alive!

A special thanks to our fearless leader and founder, Dr. Barbara Barlow. Her dedication, wisdom, expertise and inspiration help make this an exciting organization and conference every year.

This year, we saw the retirement of Lenita Johnson who has served our organization above and beyond the call of duty for over 20 years. We are happy for Lenita to get to enjoy retirement, sad for us to see her retire from IFCK and excited to celebrate her accomplishments! Likewise, a big thanks to former board members Chris Vitale and Dawne Gardner for their commitment and service to our IFCK organization.

Many thanks for attending YOUR conference. May you have many opportunities to network with both new attendees and known colleagues! When we come together and share injury prevention ideas, we are joining forces to make children safer.

Sincerely,