What is Injury Free Day?
What is Injury Free Day?
Injury Free Day is a national safety awareness campaign that promotes the importance of injury prevention in the workplace, home and community. It links businesses, schools and the general community in a day of action dedicated to safety, and through the KIDS Foundation, creates a life long learning approach to safety so that as children transition from school to work, they are already strong advocates of safety in the workplace and their local communities.
Why is Injury Free Day important?
Every day in Australia, 5,000 children are injured and 100 hospitalised, 41% of all deaths of children aged 1 – 14years are injury deaths, injuries and the main reason children are hospitalised (1)
Whether intended or accidental, most physical injuries can be prevented by identifying their causes and removing these, or reducing people’s exposure to them (2)
Every day, 2000 people are injured at work, costing employees, businesses and the community more than $34 billion a year - and yet most injuries are predictable and preventable simply through greater awareness and education.
The earlier that education starts, the better the outcomes for the community and the workplace.
The KIDS Foundation, through its education programs, works towards reducing that figure by helping children and young people develop life long skills to avoid injury whether at home, work or play.
Currently, we run safety awareness programs in 200 primary schools throughout Australia and this year, we are looking to develop a secondary schools program to increase safety literacy among young people that will help them transition that knowledge into the workplace.
(1) Australian Bureau of Statistics data from Research Centre for Injury Studies, Flinders University.
(2) The National Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Plan: 2004 – 2014 Canberra: NPHP