Feature

Accidental injury is a leading cause of children’s deaths. In safety towns, kids learn what it takes to steer clear of harm’s way

By Wendy Gould

Imagine a miniature town. On every corner are small stop signs or tiny traffic signals and scaled-down crosswalks. A child-size firehouse, complete with a few fire trucks, dominates the cityscape. Little houses with flower-filled front yards line the streets, and mini-mailboxes identify the city’s “citizens”: “The Millers” or “The Johnsons.”

What do firefighters do? How do their coats protect them? The Welland, Ontario, safety village provides the answers. ABOVE: Laps through the Niagara Region Children's Safety Village teach traffic lessons.

Children participating in the City of Alameda’s Safety Town talk with a fire fighter about fire-safety techniques.

In such a toy-like setting, one almost expects to see Barbie strolling down the sidewalk or Bob the Builder mending a broken fence. This wee burg, however, has a purpose completely aside from being a source of kiddie entertainment. It’s a town built to teach kids some serious safety.

Though fun—and even cute—child-size neighborhoods often are known as “safety towns” or “safety villages.” And they are popping up all across North America and other parts of the world to teach pedestrian, bicycle, fire, water, poison, and other basic, yet essential, safety lessons.

“The main purpose of Safety Town is to teach basic safety rules to 5-year-old children and make them more aware of their need to practice safety rules when they are walking or riding their bikes to schools, stores, and parks,” says Deanna Johe, who is executive assistant of the Alameda, California, fire department and a member of the Alameda Kiwanis club, which sponsors and assists with a safety town.

A typical safety town offers programs taught by certified teachers or professional fire and police officers. Often the curriculum has been approved either by a national safety town center or programs through the fire and police departments. Children participating in these programs usually range in age from preschool to fifth grade, and the safety town training is a part of their elementary education.

Though some safety towns are permanent structures used year round, others are temporary, set up once or twice a year for special presentations.

The safety town in Alameda, California, is the temporary kind, established by the Junior Women’s club in 1973. Alameda Kiwanians provide a coordinator for the event, volunteers who direct children through the town and set up informational handouts, and funds for bus transportation for the children. The town consists of nine collapsible buildings that are set up on a simulated street with sidewalks, crosswalks, and crossing lights for one week in October each year.

Children who participate in the program are bused from their school to the safety town where they are promptly greeted by a friendly face: McGruff the Crime Dog. The children take turns talking with police officers about bicycle helmet safety, dialing emergency telephone numbers, and other pertinent safety information. The whole experience is further enhanced through the police department’s robotic “PC” patrol car. Plus, fascinated children get to see the “mysterious” inside of an ambulance and sit inside a real-life fire truck. And while kindergarteners stroll through the tiny town, they get an ample boost in pedestrian safety rules.

That’s exactly why safety towns’ lessons are especially impacting. Instead of just telling children what they ought to do in a particular safety dilemma, the children participate in a hands-on—and feet-on—practical learning environment.

“We have heard numerous stories from parents on how the summer program impacts the children’s lives and understanding of safety,” says Misty Hollis, past president of the Richmond, Indiana, Kiwanis club, which runs the Kiwanis Safety Village, one of only two permanent safety villages in Indiana.

In fact, Misty says, (the club and safety village officials) have “often been told by parents that their five-year-old is telling them what is safe and unsafe!”

And kids’ safety knowledge is crucial. Especially when you consider that, according to Washington, DC-based Safe Kids Worldwide, accidental childhood injury is a leading killer of children 14 and under.

Safetyvillege1.jpg: A police officer’s bicycle safety lecture gains rapt attention from a young audience.

 “It is more important than ever that we provide children with an interactive place where they can learn, experience, and remember valuable life saving lessons that they will carry with them into adulthood,” says Janet Cunningham, executive director of the Chatham-Kent Children’s Safety Village, located in Ontario, Canada. The Chatham-Kent safety village is supported by area Kiwanis clubs.

The Chatham-Kent safety village motto states: “If you tell me why, I may listen; if you show me, I may understand; and if you involve me, I will learn.”

It is all too easy to flippantly disregard the possibility of dangers, be they known or unknown, children will face in their lifetime. Despite what some may think, humans are not born with an innate knowledge that provides them with an encyclopedia of what to do when “this” or when “that” happens. Learning by trial or through experience is simply the nature of how the human species functions. Ultimately, it is adults’ responsibility to ensure children are equipped with the proper information needed to withstand a potential—and all too likely—safety hazard in their future.

“Teaching safety to our young children is paramount in their early years,” says Alameda club president Russ Grant. “Safety town enhances the learning of important safety issues, thus supporting ongoing school training as well as emphasizing what parents teach their children at home.”