17th December 2019
A guest blog by Professor Alan Emond, Professor of Child Health at University of Bristol giving an update on SafeTea – a national prevention campaign to reduce scalds from hot drinks to children under 5 years and to improve first aid of children who have been burned.
SafeTea is a national campaign which aims to reduce hot drink scalds to young children and promote burns first aid. The target audience is parents, grandparents and carers of children under 5 across the UK.
SafeTea was launched on 16 October 2019: the campaign has been rolled out across England, Wales, Scotland, and N Ireland. In October and November, there were over 250,000 viewings of the videos and a reach on Facebook and Twitter of close to half a million. The campaign is still running on social media: @SafeTeaCampaign and #safetea.
The campaign now needs boosting, because December and January is a period where children have an elevated risk of a burn injury, as they are in the home more (where children are most likely to suffer a hot drink burn), and the cold weather results in increased consumption of hot drinks.
The key messages of the campaign are to:
- Keep hot drinks away from young children
- Never carry a hot drink whilst carrying a baby
- Never pass a hot drink over the heads of young children
- Make a SafeTea zone: a safe place for hot drinks in your home, out of reach of small children
- First aid for burns is: COOL, CALL, COVER
Health visitors are encouraged to take the resources (such as the reach chart and the flyers) out on visits over the next few months, to make parents aware of how easy it is for a child to knock a hot drink over.
SafeTea provides free access to a suite of printable materials (posters, a flyer, reach chart, fridge magnet and activity pack) to support nurseries, early years settings and community practitioners in communicating the SafeTea messages
SafeTea Fridge Magnet
The campaign is emphasising the likelihood and severity of hot drink burns in pre-school children, giving prevention and first aid advice. Parents and carers of young children are sharing their SafeTea stories on social media and publicising the SafeTea pledge to raise awareness of hot drink safety at home.
Why not ask parents to take the SafeTea pledge?
Use the reach chart, posters and flyers to promote the key messages:
Encourage nurseries, child minders and early years settings to visit the SafeTea website and use the videos and printed materials available.
Be a SafeTea supporter!
