The experts at Children’s Hospital of Michigan aren’t just helping and healing kids who are injured. Through the Kohl’s Injury Prevention Program (KIPP), Children’s Hospital and Kohl’s Cares® are working actively to educate families on safety to prevent injuries from happening in the first place.
“We focus our prevention efforts in the community in four major areas: safe sleep, fire and burn, pedestrian and bike safety, and car seats and motor vehicle safety explains Heather Schaewe, MSN, RN, and program manager of trauma, burn and injury prevention at Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
To do this, KIPP holds free events throughout the year across Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties – including at schools – to make learning about safety fun for kids and significant for parents.
One of the many ways they’re doing this is through Safe Baby University for expectant moms, which teaches how to install a car seat, safe ways to deal with a crying, colicky baby, fire and burn safety, sleep safety and more. At the end of the class, moms receive a free safety-approved car seat.
“It’s a way to get parents the information that they really need to protect these babies in the first few months of their life,” Schaewe says.
KIPP also holds car seat events to check the safety of a family’s current car seat, and check if the car seat is expired. If something is not right with the seat, they have a limited number of seats they give out. “We had 116 car seat checks where there were about 5,200 caregivers educated and 1,182 seats distributed last year.”
Other events for kids include helmet events, focused on getting kids to properly wear a helmet when biking and rollerblading. Last year, KIPP fit 4,100 helmets, Schaewe notes. “When you put a bike helmet on them, we know that kids tend to push it back,” she says. So, they ask kids questions and talk to them about the importance of proper helmet usage. “Because we work with kids all the time, we know exactly those things that kids are going to do.”
Their focus on fire safety includes a smoke alarm installation program, which you can sign up for online. The KIPP team will come to your home and educate you about fire escape safety.
“I think it’s very unique that we have the multifaceted approach,” Schaewe says. And it’s really all about reaching the kids. “It’s fun. We make it fun.”
Learn about all of KIPP’s safety programs, and find out about KIPP events in your neighborhood online at or call 313-745-0072. Support for KIPP is provided by Kohl’s Cares® and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan Foundation.
