Teaching Safety In Todays Changing World

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Out With The Old In With The New

• Teaching Safety In Todays Changing World
• Samantha Wilson
• Kidproof Canada

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How important is teaching personal safety in
school?
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How many times do you know of that

• A child got lost or injured on a field trip
• An unwanted visitors was in the school
• A child was injured on the playground
• A child was involved in a school bus injury
• A student was injured in other traffic related
  incidents around the school
• A child was bullied

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Whos job is it to teach safety to kids?

• The Police?
• The Schools?
• The Parents?

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Fundamentals of Making Unsafe Choices

• Embarrassment
• Avoidance
• Ignorance
• Convenience

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Embarrassment

• WHY THE BAD CHOICE

• OVERCOMING IT

• Fear of peer rejection

• Think of the embarrassing moment as just that a
  moment.
• IT WILL PASS

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Avoidance

• WHY THE BAD CHOICE

• OVERCOMING IT

• Easier to just agree
• Dont want to be judged or look afraid

• Give yourself permission to go against the crowd.
  

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Ignorance

• WHY THE BAD CHOICE

• OVERCOMING IT

• Lack of proper direction and knowledge

• Deliver clear, current messages in a consistent
  manner
• Show examples of when a good choice changed the
  outcome of a dangerous situation

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Convenience

• WHY THE BAD CHOICE

• OVERCOMING IT

• Most common reason for making a bad choice
• Learned behavior from parents or peers
• Easier for the moment

• Show examples of where good choices were made
  with positive outcomes
• Show examples where a bad choice was made and
  made the situation more difficult and not
  convenient at all

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Is Your Classroom Safe?
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Most Common Mistakes Made at School

• Stranger Danger focused lessons
• Requesting name tags and labeling materials
• Not confronting visitors

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Stranger Danger

• Misleading and instills fear of people
• Focuses on the wrong person
• Contradictory and confusing
• Instead Teach
• NEVER GO ANYWHERE WITH ANYONE WITHOUT
• ASKING PERMISSION FIRST

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Name Tags and Labels

• Identifies a child to onlookers
• Relies on Convenience for the basis of the
  unsafe choice
• Instead Teach
• UNIQUE SYMBOL CHALLENGE

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Unwanted Visitors

• Potential violent offender
• Potential predator
• Trouble-making students from other schools
• ALWAYS challenge unidentified visitors
• Lock all interior doors when not in use

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Unsafe practices

• Babysitting lists
• Encourages unsafe behavior
• Increase school liability
• Sharing personal information in hallways
• Compromises identity of students
• Opens opportunity for domestic / custody related
  issues to progress

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How to make kids think safe

• School wide programs
• Community wide awareness programs
• Open reporting
• Catch them doing something safe SUPERSTARS

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Achieving the ULTIMATE SAFE KID
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Assemblies

• GOOD

• BAD

• Creates excitement and buzz around the subject
• Gets everyone starting at same point
• Introduces key messages that will be taught later

• Harder to teach for long term retention
• Students can be distracted

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In Class Skills Practice

• GOOD

• BAD

• Each classroom able to focus on specific subject
  in smaller groups
• Can initiate smaller projects

• Takes away classroom time for other lessons

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Involve Parents

• Helps reinforce key messages
• Disseminates accurate and consistent information
• Empowers parents with knowledge
• Strengthens trust and school community environment

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Safety is part of EVERYTHING
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Incorporating Personal Safety into Existing
Curriculum

• Science discuss safety practices scientists use
• Art create posters and visual arts that build on
  key messages
• Social Studies What are the safety concerns for
  children in other countries and if they are
  different, why?
• Reading find stories that illustrate and discuss
  personal safety
• Play Time consistent enforcement of safety rules

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Over 28,000 Canadian children require medical
attention each year due to playground injuries
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Majority of accidents happen during lunch hour
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Types of Injuries

• OUTSIDE BREAK TIME

• CLASSROOM RELATED

• Sport or break-time related
• Sprains, broken bones, twisted ankles
• Head injuries
• Falls

• Burns
• Cuts
• Scrapes

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Prevention is Key

• Have and enforce safe play
• Check equipment regularly
• Have a suitable number of adult-supervisors

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Field Trip Survival Pack

• Current pictures of all students
• Parent contact information on each child
• School contact information on each child
• Medications for students
• First Aid Kit
• Rehearsed safety plan

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Technology

• Internet 1 way kids communicate
• Instant Messenger, email, text messaging
• Cell phones
• Exposed to both real and false information

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Problem

• Kids have not developed proper critical thinking
  skills
• Internet offers true and false information
• Opens the door to cyber-bullying

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What is Cyber Bullying?
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The Cyber Bully Uses

• Instant Messenger, email, text messaging,
  Personal websites, blogs and cell phones have
  become the new tools for the bully

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What the future holds

• Potential to increase the bully population
  exponentially
• Long term effects of Internet postings

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Defense

• Keep the lines of communication open
• Monitor and save online communications
• Report any incident to local police
• Remind your kids they dont have to put up with
  harassment

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www.cybertip.ca

• The 911 for Internet Crimes
• against Kids

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Just because it happens outside of school, you
still need to deal with it

• You can have the greatest influence on the
  choices students make outside the classroom

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Whos Job Is It to Protect Kids?

• Yours, mine, neighbors, the school board,
• friends, politicians, community leaders,
• police, and society.EVERYONE!

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Thank You!

• Samantha Wilson
• www.kidproofcanada.com