Teaching Plan on Helmets 3 to 5 - Essay Example

Safety Use of Helmet Lecturer Assessment of readiness Health promotion plan is a nursing activity in the community that aims at addressing health needs of a particular community group. This paper will hence discuss the health teaching need for a community group, the child development center age group 3 on the usage of toddler helmet. This paper also seeks to review the readiness assessment, and plan a health promotion and teaching project. Due to the growing need and excitement by children to ride, ski and skate, there is readiness to address safety and health teaching need through the promotion of the use of helmet by children of age group 3 in the community. We as the nursing group recommend that one wear a helmet every time they ride even if it is just for a short ride. It is often very difficult for such children to avoid objects and obstacles when biking, skiing, sledding, or in line skating. Children of age group 3are specifically vulnerable to head injuries due to their proportionally large heads and high gravity center. Their coordination is also not developed fully (US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 2009). This is what informed us of the need of health promotion among this group of children in the community. Our target group is therefore the center of child development age group 3. The nursing group The teaching need was identified by us, the community nurses. We offer health teaching needs to the vulnerable groups in the community, and in this particular case, we will focus on, our target group mentioned above. Community diagnosis The children are diagnosed with possible complications and problems that arise from failure to wear helmets when riding or skiing. These children are likely to have head and brain injuries. Therefore this forms the basis of the diagnosis. The first diagnosis done to child development center age group is serious head injuries and brain injury. This is due to the children’s tendency to ski and ride. Wearing helmet will minimize chances of serious head injuries and brain injury by around 85%. The child development center age group 3was also diagnosed with the vulnerability to facial and head injuries due to lack of use of helmets. This was because of the rising cases of child head injuries. Every year, approximately 300000 children end up in the emergency department due to bike injuries. At least 10000 out of this number are kids with injuries that require few days in the health facility. Some injuries are very serious and some children end up dying. A head injury may mean brain injury. Objectives of the plan To instruct the children on safety use of their helmets, we recommend that the helmets should fit the children properly and should not be too big or too small. One should not wear any hat under the helmet (Ward, 2000). To ask the parents to ensure that the helmets fit their children well before they leave for a ride, we realized these children have a high rate of injury of bike riders. Bike accidents are also causing high rate of deaths among such children. This is also a factor that informed the obvious need of the safety promotion among the target group. To teach these children by giving examples through wearing the helmet and demonstrating that it looks good (US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 2009), this is because children are likely to wear such helmets if they are aware they look good in them. To educate the target group on the importance of bike safety and use of helmets, for example, the safest means of using a bike is not play but transport. We saw the need of this promotion as community nurses due to the alarming accident figures on this age group. This is why this initiative is very important and is obviously needed in this child development center age group 3(Riley, 2008). To advise the children not to get reckless just because they have worn helmets, helmets will only provide protection for your face, head and brain in case of a fall (US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 2009). To educate these children how to use a helmet after addressing the importance of having one However, we will also recommend that although helmet prevent injuries and save life, they are not appropriate in other areas: children should avoid helmets when climbing trees or on the play ground equipment, this is because they may get stuck (Loyd et al., 2007). Teaching strategies Administering baseline surveys with the help of classroom teachers The promotion will be carried out through improving the level of creativity and knowledge of the children on the use of helmets, by involving schools and community in participation and involvement which will be given the first priority. Communicating the proposed health promotion initiative for bike safety among the children of age group 3through their parents and care takers, this health promotion initiative will be communicated from top to bottom, formulation stage to implementation stage We will employ an effective communication of the health and safety promotion plan in order to reach the entire community through schools, churches and all other social places including market places. Use of self reports in the implementation of the health and safety initiative, live demonstrations on the use of helmets will be used in implementation and communication of the initiative (Sanchez, et al., 2000). Evaluation In spite of several growing number of school based interventions that are designed in order to teach children on the use of helmet and promote safety, there has been an increased level of child head injury in the community due to ignorance of helmet use among children. Evaluation mechanisms will include: School based intervention will be used to ensure evaluation of maximum safety of these children and good use of helmets. Include these children in a baseline and final surveys that will be administered with the help of classroom teacher during a class session during the evaluation plan. Self reports from children will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching plan (Ferrin et al, 2008). In summary, we will ask the children to wear the helmet in the right way once they have it so that they can be protected. Children should wear the helmet to cover their forehead and should not be tipped. The straps should remain fastened to avoid the helmet from falling off the head. The helmet should be taken care of and not thrown to avoid damage. If a child falls down, the helmet should be tested or a new one acquired (Ward, 2009). A new helmet is recommended after a fall or crash even if it seems fine (US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), 2009). It may have been damaged from inside. The selection of a helmet should be based on fit and right size. A good helmet for kids should be snug, stable and level. A helmet should fit and not one to grow into. We also recommend that lightweight helmets with cool colors should be made to attract children for use. Children will also be taught how they are protected by helmets. During a crash or a fall, helmets absorbs much of the force resulting from the impact that otherwise would have been directed to the head. The thick plastic foam within the outer hard shell of the helmet cushions the blow and provides protection. References Ferrin, D, et al. (2008). Bike Safety: a literature review. Journal of School of Health; 78: 189- 196 Loyd, G., Lake, C., & Greenberg, R. (2007). Practical health care simulations. Journal of Nursing, 31- 67 Riley, R. (2008). Manual of simulation in healthcare, Nursin Journal, 5: 100-152 Sanchez, S et al. (2008). Emerging Issues in Healthcare Simulation. Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8 98), 1999-2003. US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), (2009) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (CDC), 2007. New York: Prentice Hall Ward, T. (2009). Communicating health and safety promotion initiatives. Journal of School of Health, 9(2), 200-310 Read More