Presenter Profile

Symone Ferguson

Senior Project Coordinator, Child Abuse Death Review Unit
Florida Department of Health, Division of Children’s Medical Services
Symone.Ferguson@flhealth.gov
www.FLCADR.com

Symone Ferguson is a Senior Project Coordinator at the Child Abuse Death Review Unit within the Florida Department of Health, Division of Children’s Medical Services. In this role, she manages legislative-funded projects aimed at enhancing child safety and reducing fatalities. She spearheads the planning and logistics for initiatives aimed at preventing child fatalities, drawing on her experience in project management, data analysis, and administrative leadership. Her diverse background has equipped her with a broad range of skills, including expertise in coordinating large-scale initiatives, leading prevention initiatives, and navigating complex regulatory environments. She supports multidisciplinary committees through the planning and execution of prevention initiatives, leveraging her project management skills, honed through her Lean Six Sigma Advanced Yellow Belt certification. By attending national conferences, she remains current with developments in child fatality review and prevention, which broadens Florida's impact in these crucial areas in a national scale. Symone’s commitment to continuous education and staying informed helps drive forward the unit's mission to improve child safety through evidence-based strategies and collaboration.

Presentations

Utilizing Child Abuse Death Review (CADR) Data to Implement Statewide Prevention Initiatives

Brenna Radigan
Symone Ferguson
DeShanta Richardson

Part of session:
Lightning Round Presentations
Friday Lightning Round
Friday, December 6, 2024, 1:00 PM to 1:40 PM
Background:

The Florida CADR System is charged with conducting case reviews on all incidents of child deaths investigated by the Florida Department of Children and Families with the purpose of achieving a greater understanding of the factors contributing to preventable child death and to address these factors through the development of effective prevention efforts. The CADR System utilized data to inform the development of prevention initiatives to specifically address the primary factors contributing to the leading causes of preventable child death as demonstrated through the CADR case review process including, sleep-related infant death, drowning, and inflicted trauma.

Methods:

Through the CADR case review process, an examination of at least 688 child death incidents occurring in 2019-2021, demonstrated sleep-related infant death and drowning as the two leading causes of preventable child death of cases examined by the Florida CADR System. Data analysis of surrounding circumstances of sleep-related infant death and drowning highlight contributing factors which is utilized to inform the development of effective prevention efforts.

Results:

CADR data demonstrates the majority of sleep-related infant deaths in Florida are among infants 1-4 months of age, most frequently occurring in an unsafe sleep environment such as an adult bed, and the infant is most often found on their stomach when discovered unresponsive. Additionally, CADR data demonstrates that the majority of child drowning deaths occur in children 1-4 years of age and occur during non-swim time activities or when the child was not expected to be in or near the water. These critical factors along with other data derived from the CADR system were used in the design, development, and implementation of two data-informed prevention initiatives: Sleep Baby Safely and Keep Kids Safe From Drowning. Further examination of CADR data indicates geographical areas of the state with higher-than-state-average occurrence of sleep-related infant death and child drowning, allowing the CADR system to focus efforts in critical areas of the state to make the greatest initial impact, with an overarching goal of implementing the developed prevention efforts statewide.

Conclusions:

In 2019, the CADR System implemented Sleep Baby Safely in Duval County, Florida as a pilot project. The examination of needed resources, support, and demonstrated outcomes of this pilot project promoted the expansion of Sleep Baby Safely to include eight additional counites in the state with higher-than-state-average incidents of sleep-related infant death. In 2022, the Florida legislature approved funds to support the expansion of this project as well as the Keep Kids Safe From Drowning prevention effort by allocating $2.8 million to these efforts. Both prevention initiatives have been implemented through the coordinated efforts of Local CADR Committee members and stakeholders, with continued examination of data collected through the CADR case review process for further evaluation of efficacy and to further support prevention initiative efforts.

Objectives:

1. Attendees of this presentation will outline methods utilized in the development of data-informed prevention initiatives, Sleep Baby Safely and Keep Kids Safe From Drowning.
2. Attendees will be able to demonstrate how data-informed prevention initiatives can address primary factors contributing to preventable child death and identify available and/or needed data sources.
3. This presentation will encourage attendees to examine existing data-informed prevention initiatives and evaluate gaps which may be addressed through further prevention initiative development.