Multi-sectoral action for child safety–a European study exploring implicated sectors

Abstract

Injury to children in Europe, resulting in both death and disability, constitutes a significant burden on individuals, families and society. Inequalities between high and low-income countries are growing. The World Health Organisation Health 2020 strategy calls for inter-sectoral collaboration to address injury in Europe and advocates the whole of government and whole of society approaches to wicked problems. In this study we explore which sectors (e.g. health, transport, education) are relevant for four domains of child safety (intentional injury, water, road and home safety). We used the organigraph methodology, originally developed to demonstrate how organizations work, to describe the governance of child safety interventions. Members of the European Child Safety Alliance, working in the field of child safety in 24 European countries, drew organigraphs of evidence-based interventions. They included the different actors involved and the processes between them. We analyzed the organigraphs by counting the actors presented and categorizing them into sectors using a pre-defined analysis framework. We received 44 organigraphs from participants in 24 countries. Twenty-seven sectors were identified across the four domains. Nine of the 27 identified sectors were classified as 'core sectors' (education, health, home affairs, justice, media, recreation, research, social/welfare services and consumers). This study reveals the multi-sectoral nature of child safety in practice. It provides information for stakeholders working in child safety to help them implement inter-sectoral child safety interventions taking a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to health governance.

A Heuristic Governance Framework for the Implementation of Child Primary Health Care Interventions in Different Contexts in the European Union

“…12,18 The latter is the European level (including the EU) and can also refer to the global level. Indeed, MLG reflects the notion that decision-making competencies—also in child health—are dispersed across different territorial levels, 12,19,20 and actors have different tactics and strategies to take decisions. 17 MLG refers to actors that are different government organizations on different levels, eg, how central state government organizations give competencies to state government organizations on the subnational levels or to the levels above.…”

Effect of the Safe Fall Programme on Children’s Health and Safety: Dealing Proactively with Backward Falls in Physical Education Classes

“…The study of falls among the school population has attracted a great deal of social interest in terms of public health, safety, and the protection of minors, becoming an important component of intervention in developed societies throughout the world. This interest in the study of fall-induced injuries and their consequences has been reflected in studies published in high-impact Spanish and international journals in the area of psychology and public health [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”

“…The scientific community has reacted in Spain [8,[10][11][12] and internationally [2,4,14] with preventive programmes that, from a multisector approach [6], partially solve the problem of falls, as children will continue to have falls since it is in their nature to do so [15].…”

Children’s Improvement of a Motor Response during Backward Falls through the Implementation of a Safe Fall Program

“…Studying falls among schoolchildren has taken on considerable social importance, as it is a subject with close ties to public health, safety and child protection; for this reason, it has become a worldwide intervention priority in developed countries. The subject’s salience is also visible in numerous publications in high impact journals on education and public health [1,2,3,4,5].…”

“…As awareness of this issue has grown, Spanish [8,9,13] and international [4,17,18] researchers have responded with prevention programs and research, with attempts to approach the issue from multiple sectors. However, prevention is not enough, as the risk of children falling while they practice sports or games is still present [5,19,20]. To provide a response to the problem associated to child falls beyond prevention programs, the current study proposes a proactive training program that serves as a new tool in the field of fall prevention.…”