Safe and Healthy Kids

We are working to ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive in a community that fosters safety, resiliency, creativity, and wellness. Efforts include:

• Implementation of evidence-based wellness policies and practices in Douglas County schools, before/after-school programs, and child care

• Support school district (Lawrence, Eudora, Baldwin City, Perry-Lecompton) efforts to reduce application barriers and increase the number of families that complete the free and reduced meals application

• Organize and promote FREE Car Seat Checks

• Coordinate policy, system and environmental changes to implement research-based safe sleep recommendations across community organizations

• Educate healthcare professionals to use sleep-related suffocation language to clarify for parents that in most sleep-related deaths, children do not die from unexplained reasons but due to positional asphyxia and other forms of suffocation/strangulation

• Form a Douglas County Breastfeeding Coalition to encourage and support the benefits of human milk consumption, including as a protective factor against sudden unexpected infant deaths.

• Organize 10 crib clinics per year with pre/post evaluation

Resources

• Community Children’s Center

• Douglas County 4-H

• Positive Bright Start

• Safe Kids Kansas