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Creighton University’s new Child Safety Center opened Wednesday morning in North Omaha. The center aims to raise awareness of accidental childhood injuries and give the Omaha community methods to keep kids safe.
Accidental injuries are the leading cause of death in children ages 1 to 19, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Dr. Scott Shipman is the Executive Director of the Institute for Population Health (IPH). It’s a department at Creighton focused on health equity and community health determinants. Shipman said many common accidental deaths can be prevented.
“What we hope to do is provide education of the risks, help families and others who work with families to know how to mitigate those risks or reduce those risks to prevent what's preventable,” Shipman said.
Educational programs will be hosted at the Child Safety Center, and methods of accident prevention like helmets, outlet covers, booster seats and stair gates will be available for free or at low cost.
“We'll have those supplies available in a convenient place in North Omaha so that people know where they can go get the appropriate safety equipment at an affordable cost to be able to carry through on their good intentions to reduce injuries,” Shipman said.
Education will be targeted at parents, teachers and other caregivers.
“We hope to work with schools and churches, places where children and families spend a lot of time, to build infrastructure and institutional knowledge about injury risks so that they can be passed along in those settings as well,” Shipman said.
Funded by the Lozier Foundation, the IPH will run the center in partnership with Children’s Nebraska.
“While this is not primarily a health care delivery entity, the expertise of pediatricians and injury prevention specialists at Children's is a really important part of our work with the safety center,” Shipman said.
Shipman said the IPH will serve to combine health equity expertise by bringing together other community organizations and non-profits.
“The things that cause inequities in health within our communities are often complex and multifactorial, and so it really does take different skill sets to solve those complex problems,” Shipman said.
An upgraded 4,000 square-foot space will house the Child Safety Center, located at the Highlander Accelerator building at 2212 N. 30th St. Shipman said the location of the center will provide a key resource to an at-risk population of children.
“The risk of injuries in black and brown children [is] considerably higher than the risk of injuries in other groups of kids from racial and ethnic standpoint,” Shipman said. “Given that the highest density of black and brown kids [lives] in North Omaha, it's a place where we really think we can make a disproportionate impact.”
Shipman said the impact of the center’s work will eventually be measured.
“One of the things we hope to do with the center is really commit ourselves to collecting and pulling together data on an ongoing basis so we can understand where the risks are greatest, what specific injuries are, the places we should focus our attention based on their prevalence, and then look to see if we're making a difference over time,” Shipman said.
The Child Safety Center will host an open house on Nov. 18.