November 1, 2005 - Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Atlanta
On September 21, 2005 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Board of Trustees members visited the Grady Health System. The Grady Health System is home to two of its funded programs: the Urgent Matters Program, which focuses on emergency room improvement, administered by the acclaimed Dr. Leon Haley and the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Atlanta, a local site of the national dissemination of a model injury prevention program for children & adolescents; a $15-million national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation® (RWJF) to reduce and prevent injuries to children through: Obtaining population-based injury data.
Building coalitions of hospital, community, and government to bring multiple agency and community resources to the project. Creating safe activities and safe play spaces, as well as providing injury prevention education to children and families.
Securing multiple local funding sources including foundations, private and corporate donors, in addition to hospital support, to enable continuation of the activities upon completion of RWJF funding.
During there visit the Board of Trustee members were delivered presentations by the Principal Investigator’s of both initiatives and greeted by the President of Grady Health System – Dr. Andy Agwunobi. A presentation on Improving Hospital Design a funded initiative of RWJF was also presented by Dr. Zimring from Georgia Instititute of Technology. Dr. Terri McFadden-Garden represented the Principal Investigator’s and program for the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Atlanta. One of three Principal Investigator’s for the Atlanta site team which also includes Principal Investigator’s - Dr. Barbara Pettit and Dr. Jana McLeod, Research Coordinator – Dr. Kirsten Bradbury and Program Coordinator – Ana Everett, MPA. Dr. McFadden held the honor and presented the board with an intriguing and compassionate look at why our programs are important and necessary. (See Power Point Presentation in Resource Section of Atlanta Site.)
The RWJF Board of Trustee’s were then taken on an interactive journey which highlighted two of our sites premier and most utilized programs – The Safe @ Home: In Home Safety Program and our IFCK Atlanta: Occupant Safety Program. IFCK Atlanta Safe @ Home Program are three life-sized replicas of three living areas of a home. The Safe House has a demonstration Bedroom, Kitchen, and Living Room. Families are taken to each room and have to either identify hazards as part of a scavenger hunt or correct hazards a variety of incentives are giving to all participants. The RWJF Board of Trustee’s member’s a highly competitive group faired well competing against each other to identify the most hazards. The group also displayed their competitiveness and injury prevention knowledge and awareness in their demonstration of how we conduct our IFCK Occupant Safety Education Program and again this group faired well in correctly identifying appropriate child restraints, age and weight requirements, and statistics related to occupant safety. A well informed group in Injury Prevention.
Having the board members assumed the roles of the families we serve and experience first hand the fun and knowledge our families gain from their funding of the Coalition and its local programming was very important to us in our planning. We really wanted to engage them and we succeeded in sharing the experiences that they help to create.
Preparing for the visit was intense and involved the collaboration of many of our coalition partner’s and other IFCK sites to make sure the visit would be a success. Part of our charge is building coalitions of hospital, community, and government to bring multiple agency and community resources to the project. We wanted the board members to really get a sense of the work we do and the impact so we placed the same amount of effort, collaboration, detail, and consideration that goes into planning our programs for families.
Keeping in line with our charge as a coalition we utilized the help and support of Injury Free Coalition for Kids: National Program Office representative Lenita Johnson who was critical and instrumental in the success of our visit from start to finish. She thinks of everything! We could not have been as well prepared without Lenita’s greatly appreciated assistance. Jackie Moore of the Grady Health System’s Department of Public Affairs was also instrumental in helping us with our internal layout and facilitation of planning for our visit. Also in the spirit of collaboration and a keen understanding of leveraging resources when working with limited resources we engaged some of our core partner’s which included: Fulton County Safe Kids who assisted us with setting up for event and providing demonstration seats, The Georgia Poison Control Center assisted with the utilization of Health Educator – Tanneshia Sherrer who delivered the Safe @ Home Education program to the Board of Trustee members; the National Highway and Safety Administration who provided us with media clips of Crash Dummy footage demonstrating what happens to our children when not properly secured in automobiles; CHOP’s IFCK site Partner’s for Child Passenger Safety educational video footage on appropriate Child Passenger Safety hosted by Dr. Flaura Winston; Allstate Foundation for Safe @ Home Bags which were given to member’s to take home to a family that could use the bags and its safety material; Emory School of Medicines Audio/Visual staff; staff members of the Grady Health System, Emory School of Medicine, Hughes Spalding Children’s Hospital and last but not least all our volunteers, friends, and family member’s who help to make our efforts a success.
Our thanks goes out to all the Board of Trustee members for their support and belief in the Injury Free Coalition for Kids. A special thanks to Dr. Calvin Bland, Chief of Staff & Special Advisor to the President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and his staff for selecting us as their site this year. We enjoyed your visit.
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Ana Everett,MPA
Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Atlanta
Emory School of Medicine
49 Jesse Hill Jr. Drive
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
O:404-616-1403
