European Child Safety Alliance
Making the lives of children living in Europe safer
Injuries are the leading cause of death in children - in the WHO European Region. Each year millions of children are sent to hospitals or emergency departments, possibly leading to lifelong disabilities. Injuries affecting children place a huge drain on the resources of not only health systems but also society at large.
What is the European Child Safety Alliance?
The European Child Safety Alliance (ECSA) was formed more than 20 years ago with the aim of making the lives of children living in Europe safer. More than 30 countries across Europe joined together to reduce injury which is the leading cause of death, disability and inequity to children in every state across Europe.
The European Child Safety Alliance has been hosted for a number of years by RoSPA. Prior to that it was hosted by the Consumer Safety Institute in the Netherlands. Child safety experts from across Europe come from diverse fields and settings, including medicine, public health, psychology, education, engineering and government, to share and advocate for what works to prevent child injury - to benefit both the children and their families.
Over the years the Alliances led on many projects, and one of the main outputs from these were the Child Safety Report cards produced by 31 countries in 2012. These provide a rich picture of the child accident situation across Europe at the timer of publication but are now out of date. They also contain out of date contact details and can no longer be made available on the website for data protection reasons. They have therefore been archived but for anyone who is interested in a report from a particular country for research purposes please contact us and we will send you a copy. You can also access other reports from the TACTICS and PIECES projects on request.
Calling all our European partners
Over time we hope that the new re-energised ECSA site will become a focal point for the exchange of news and information about injury prevention projects, research and activities across Europe, We look forward to receiving updates from European colleagues who are working in injury prevention across Europe. We will be delighted to publish them on this site. In the meantime we’ve included a few current programmes aimed at keeping children safe in the UK but we know there is so much more activity across Europe that it would be great to share.
Share your successes
If you have a child safety programme that is delivering results in Europe – get in touch and share your success by emailing us.
Current programmes that are helping to keep children safe
Take Action Today, Put Them Away
The follow up from a major pilot programme to promote awareness and prevent accidents with household cleaning products, this programme is being rolled out across the UK
Store button batteries safely
Following a number of recent reports, RoSPA is working with partners across the UK to highlight the dangers of button batteries
Blind cords
New data from England has highlighted the need to continue raising awareness on the dangers of blind cords. They might look harmless enough, but to a young child the looped cords can be deadly if caught around their neck.