Outreach Programs Teach Lasting Lessons

Helping children recover from accidents or injuries is a big part of what Children’s Hospital of Richmond does in physician clinics and therapy appointments. Yet beyond just treating the injuries, our team works throughout the year to educate the community and help keep children from becoming future patients due to preventable accidents. With funding from Kohl’s Department stores, Children’s Hospital offers four annual safety events, a series of safety commercials on local radio, and posters on health and safety topics mailed to area schools and physicians.

Noah Tidman (pictured below), age 5, attended two of Children’s Hospital and Kohl’s safety events this year. The daycare center he attends, God’s Garden Daycare in Bowling Green, Virginia, brings their four-year-old class to Richmond for Fire Prevention Day and to Fredericksburg for Health & Safety Day. These events feature interactive booths on physical fitness, healthy eating, fire safety and more. After talking with Noah, it is clear he left both events with a lot of new knowledge.

In Fredericksburg he learned about healthy eating. “Milk is one of the best drinks,” said Noah. “It is good because it makes you strong and your bones long.” He also learned that soda and juice aren’t the best things to drink because they contain sugar, and that drinking water is good for the body. This information was provided by the Virginia Cooperative Extension, one of the 16 booths children could visit at the event. Others included a dental health booth where Noah learned that “you have to brush your teeth twice a day - all your teeth,” and interactive booths set up by Children’s Hospital’s Physical, Occupational and Speech Therapists where children worked on gross and fine motor skills, and, as Noah remarked, “you got to get your hands dirty in shaving cream.”

Fire Prevention Day in Richmond also brought lots of learning and fun. Noah had the chance to try on a firefighter’s uniform. This taught him that “the boots are very big” and the “jackets are very heavy.” “You have to be a big and strong person to be a fireperson,” said Noah. Trying on the firefighter gear and seeing the firefighter in his full uniform has two purposes. It’s fun for the kids to get to play dress up, but more importantly the children in attendance learn how a firefighters look when they are doing their job. This lesson teaches the children not to hide if they are ever in a situation in which they need to be rescued. Noah also learned the important lesson of “stop, drop and roll” and about smoke detectors. The Fire Safety information was presented by the Richmond City Fire Department, one of three area jurisdictions that participates in the event.

Noah’s teachers at God’s Garden build on the experiences the children have at these outreach events by using the information and materials received to plan curriculum for the classrooms that can reinforce these important messages. Mary Haley, Director of God’s Garden, agrees that the lessons learned during Health & Safety Day and Fire Prevention Day do have an impact on the children. “The information they are learning at these events is so important in teaching them how to be safe in the home and to live a healthy life,” said Haley. “The hands-on activities really make an impression on the kids.”

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