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    Senior Care Safety
     
     
    Guard against falls:
    • Install rails along the staircase, in the bathroom.
    • Secure windows, block stairways, and lock doors.
    • Replace unstable or slippery rugs and runners.
    • Ensure the floor is always clean, clear, and dry
       
     
  • Children Care Safety

  • General Tips: Children Care
    • Check references with other families, friends, and neighbor
    • Drop-in unexpectedly
    • Ask your children about the experience
    • Check the national sex offender registry at https://www.nsopw.gov
     
  • Safety Tips to Teach Children
    • Their name, address, telephone number
    • How to use the telephone
    • Whose homes they may visit when you’re not there
    • Where they may and may not go in the neighborhood 
  • In case of an Emergency: How to reach you?
    • Cell phone, work phone
    • Who else they may call
    • Neighbors, family members, other trusted adults
  • Do you know where your children are?
    • Know their daily habits
    • Know their friends
    • Check in with them
    • Have them check in with you
    • Make sure they are supervised when outside and away from home
  • Listen and Observe 
    • Where don’t they want to go?
    • Who don’t they want to see?
    • Is someone showing them too much attention?
    • Has their behavior or attitude changed?
  • Precautionary Measures:
    • Take color photographs every 6 months
    • Keep a description of your child
    • Keep copies of your child’s fingerprints
    • Consider having a DNA sample taken from your child
    • Know where your child’s medical records are located
  • General Tips for Adults: Stranger-Danger Myth
    • Do not confuse your children with the concept of strangers
    • Statistically incorrect
    • Kids don’t “get it”
    • Adults don’t model it
    • Inability to access help
  • Home Alone Safety: Teach Children
    • Not to open the door unless you have instructed them it is okay in each and every instance
    • Not to tell anyone they are home alone
  • Potentially Dangerous Situations:
    Teach Children
    • How to recognize and avoid potentially dangerous situations
    • To say NO and make a scene
    • To immediately get out of these situations
    • To immediately tell you or another trusted adult if something happens 
  • Camps: Questions to Ask 
    • Do they complete a background screening check on the individuals working with children?
    • Is there constant adult supervision of children including when on field trips and at off-site activities?
  • Childcare Facilities: Questions to Ask
    • Is the facility licensed?
    • Are all staff members trained?
    • Can parents/guardians come and go as they wish?
    • Can you visit and observe the personnel several times before making a decision?
    • Can you visit unannounced after placement?
  • Vehicle Safety: Teach Children
    • Never to approach or enter a vehicle, occupied or not, unless accompanied by you or another trusted adult
  • Remember most children are victimized by someone they know, love, or trust.