(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the City of Columbus are hosting the Safety City Columbus injury-prevention program for the second straight summer. The program returned in 2022 after a more than 30-year hiatus within the city’s limits. Safety City Columbus is a free four-day program for children ages 5 to 7 to learn more about traffic lights and safety, fire prevention safety, stranger awareness, police officers and more.
Because unintended injury is the leading cause of death in the United States for children 1 to 14 years of age, Safety City is seen as a critical tool in reducing the Columbus child mortality rate.
Based on the success of the 2022 program, Safety City Columbus organizers anticipate the program to triple in size in 2023, from 80 young children served to 250 children, with the help of Columbus City Schools.
“It went so well in 2022 that we felt like we had to increase the number of sites where we’d be running the program, promote them more and open up additional spots for children,” said Katie Higgins, manager of infant and child wellness at Nationwide Children’s. “We were actually having parents of children recruit their friends and neighbors because they enjoyed it so much.”
Safety City (sometimes called Safety Town) focuses on preventing some of the most common causes of injury. The curriculum can change depending on the ages and neighborhoods, though it usually focuses on areas including bike safety, drowning prevention and water safety, firearm safety, household chemical safety and safely approaching animals and pets.
The overall expansion would not have happened without Columbus City Schools and its inclusion of Safety City in the “Summer Experience” program at Stewart Elementary on the South Side, the Starling School in the Franklinton/Hilltop area, and Colerain Elementary in Clintonville.
“In Columbus, the curriculum and neighborhoods of focus are driven by the injury trends that Nationwide Children’s sees in its emergency department,” said Higgins. In 2022, the Linden and Hilltop neighborhoods were Safety City areas. They will be joined in 2023 by the South Side and Far East Side neighborhoods.
Each of those sites will transport students from partner schools as well. Colerain’s program has a special focus on students with special needs. Behavioral health and nutrition elements are being added in 2023 to the Columbus curriculum.
“It became clear in 2022 that some young participants experienced stress and separation anxiety during the program and needed additional education on healthy foods,” said Higgins.
“There is part of Safety City that helps prepare children for school, especially those who may not have had much experience in preschool,” she said. “We do some literacy work as well, including sending a book home with graduates.”
Safety City will take place at:
- Linden Park Early Childhood Education Center from July 17 to July 20 at 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Leawood Elementary School from July 24 to July 27 at 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Hilltop YMCA from July 31 to August 3 at 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
More information on registration can be found here.
About Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll on U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 list of “Best Children’s Hospitals,” Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of America’s largest not-for-profit free-standing pediatric health care systems providing unique expertise in pediatric population health, behavioral health, genomics and health equity as the next frontiers in pediatric medicine, leading to best outcomes for the health of the whole child. Integrated clinical and research programs, as well as prioritizing quality and safety, are part of what allows Nationwide Children’s to advance its unique model of care. Nationwide Children’s has a staff of more than 14,000 that provides state-of-the-art wellness, preventive and rehabilitative care and diagnostic treatment during more than 1.6 million patient visits annually. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s physicians train the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric specialists. The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the Top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded free-standing pediatric research facilities. More information is available at NationwideChildrens.org.