Keeping children safe at home: qualitative study of children's centre managers and staff

Abstract

AIM: To explore the views of professionals working in Children's Centres on the barriers and facilitators to implementing health promotion and injury prevention interventions. BACKGROUND: In the UK, unintentional injury is an important cause of death in 1-4 year olds. The burden of injury is highest for children who live in poverty. Co-ordinated services, and information and support, are provided by teams of professionals in Children's Centres for the families of these children. This includes injury prevention. METHODS: 32 semistructured interviews will be conducted with managers and staff from Children's Centres in four centres: Bristol, Nottingham, Norwich and Newcastle. Purposive sampling will be used. Interviews will ask about health education and safety promotion programmes: capacity development within Centres and ways of engaging families. Interviews will be audio-recorded and transcribed. Data will be analysed using the NVivo software package. RESULTS: Issues on barriers and facilitators and implications for practice will be documented. It will also allow us to identify how we can best support Children's Centre staff to implement evidence based injury prevention programmes. CONCLUSIONS: The Keeping Children Safe at Home programme aims to develop a better understanding of how to prevent unintentional injuries in pre-school children. It will apply this knowledge, working with Children's Centre staff, to implement effective approaches with families served by the Centres. The findings from this qualitative study will inform the development of succinct, easy-to-read, evidence-based guidance which will be implemented and evaluated in Children's Centres.