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Overview
Each year in the United States over 800 bicyclists are killed and another 55,000 are injured. Think about how much pain and suffering can be avoided and lives saved by preventing just one of these injuries. The need for good injury prevention education at an early age is critical to achieve a reduction in head and spinal cord injuries. Buckle Your Brain ™ and Caught Being Safe! ™ are two programs that educate and reward children for wearing a helmet. The Buckle Your Brain ™ program targets children from Kindergarten through grade five and addresses bicycle safety, proper helmet utilization, and the critical functions of the brain and spinal cord. Caught Being Safe! ™ is an innovative way to reinforce the importance of wearing a safety helmet by incorporating police officers, firefighters, ski patrol and educational personnel into the injury prevention campaign. Children receive a reflective sticker for their helmet and a McDonald’s Restaurant Inc. coupon for a free ice cream cone if they are “caught” wearing their helmet while participating in bicycling, skateboarding and rollerblading, as well as skiing or snow boarding. Since 1998, FNI Injury Prevention Programs have educated over 30,000 students in and distributed more than 10,000 bicycle helmets. At the end of each Buckle Your Brain ™ assembly, children are introduced to Caught Being Safe! ™.
Introduction
Injury prevention can be a frustrating job. You present your information to the audience and wonder, is the message getting through? Our injury prevention educators are always looking for a way to measure and enhance the education they provide to the children in the community. They have conducted thousands of pre and post test evaluations to measure if any new knowledge was retained. Although the results of the evaluations indicated that children were aware of the risks involved, surveys showed they still chose not to wear a helmet during at-risk activities. Armed with this information the educators looked for ways to make wearing a helmet “cool.” They developed specialized programs to target those at greatest risk of head and spinal cord injuries.
The Importance of the Program
Each year in the United States over 800 bicyclists are killed and another 55,000 are injured. Of those injured, half are the result of bicycle falls or improperly sized bikes. Helmets worn correctly and consistently reduce the risk of bicycle related death and injury when a crash occurs. Helmets have been shown to reduce the risk of head injury by as much as 85% and the risk of brain injury by as much as 88%.
One of the programs that was developed in response to the survey information is called Buckle Your Brain. ™ The mission of Buckle Your Brain ™ is to help prevent brain and spinal cord injuries by educating the youth of our community about the critical functions of the brain and spinal cord, and by reinforcing helmet use and other good safety behaviors.
Implementation The Buckle Your Brain ™ Program is presented by Injury Prevention Specialists who are dedicated to making people aware of the dire consequences that could occur when safety helmets are not worn. The program targets children from Kindergarten through grade five and addresses bicycle safety, proper helmet utilization, and the critical functions of the brain and spinal cord. The 60-minute educational presentation stresses the importance of wearing a safety helmet to protect the brain and ultimately save a LIFE. After a brief anatomy lesson, participants view a bicycle safety video. This is followed by a high energy interactive quiz which covers the rules of safe bike riding.
To reinforce the importance of wearing a helmet to protect the brain, educators use a watermelon to demonstrate to the students the risks of not wearing a helmet. The watermelon is dropped, both with and without a helmet. The helmeted melon is not damaged while the un-helmeted melon explodes, demonstrating the injuries they could sustain.
At the end of the presentation, each child is custom fitted with a bike helmet and read their “safety rights,” promising to wear their helmet to protect their brain. The Buckle Your Brain ™ program distributes thousands of free helmets each year at school assemblies and community events. Since 1998, FNI Injury Prevention Programs have educated over 30,000 students and distributed more than 10,000 bicycle helmets throughout the region. At the end of each Buckle Your Brain ™ assembly, children are introduced to Caught Being Safe! ™.
Caught Being Safe! ™ (CBS!) began as an idea to make helmet utilization attractive to children. When children have been “caught” wearing a helmet they are given a Caught Being Safe! ™ sticker for their helmet and a free food coupon. To find children wearing helmets FNI teamed up with police officers, firefighters and ski patrol to reward young people who choose to wear helmets while bicycling, skateboarding, rollerblading, snow skiing or snow boarding.
Once the CBS! Team was in place, we were in need of local businesses to help with the program. Morley Companies designed and printed the first 10,000 CBS! stickers. McDonald’s Restaurants Inc. recognized the association between the mission of Caught Being Safe! ™ and their focus on children and healthy lifestyles and agreed to print 10,000 coupons for free ice cream cones. We now had our rewards to move forward with the program.
Recognizing an opportunity to foster good relations with children, the Michigan State Police (MSP) joined CBS!. They distributed stickers and coupons to 900 patrol cars in both the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. Due to the efforts of the MSP and McDonald’s Restaurant Inc., Caught Being Safe! ™ grew to become a statewide program. In what may be the largest bicycle helmet giveaway in Michigan, Field Neurosciences Institute, McDonald’s Restaurants and the Michigan State Police are sponsoring “Safety Saturday” which involves distributing 7,500 free helmets throughout Michigan at selected McDonald’s locations. To help keep the program growing, children who are “caught” wearing a helmet more than once will continue to receive stickers for their helmets. These children will be eligible for larger rewards by bringing their helmets to Field Neurosciences Institute community events scheduled throughout the year.
Caught Being Safe! ™ has shown a significant increase in both helmet utilization and public awareness regarding the critical importance of wearing a bicycle helmet. This program has impacted not only children but adults as well. One local ski patrol has reported a 96% increase in their member’s helmet usage after partnering with Caught Being Safe! ™ .For more information on how to replicate this program in your community call Kelli Jankens at 989-497-3114 or email her at kjankens@stmarysofmichigan.org |
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