Outreach Campaigns
To support the goal of coordinating the content and timing of child injury prevention messaging, each toolkit is developed around 3-5 key injury prevention messages on a specific injury topic. Members are asked to promote the messages during a target week tied to seasons and events throughout the year. However, the materials are available to use year-round.
How to Get Involved
There are three ways you can get involved using these toolkits:
Use Prevent Child Injury materials. Most materials can be co-branded with your organization's logo and information.
Distribute materials from a curated list that has been reviewed by trusted injury prevention experts.
Use your own materials, provided those materials follow the messaging around the topic of focus.
Recommendations for Using Toolkits
To Reach Parents/Public
If you’re targeting parents or the general public, think about where this audience is getting its information about child health and safety. Doctors’ offices, childcare centers, schools, and kids’ activity centers are great places to share fact sheets, infographics, and other printable resources. The newsletter/blog article can be easily dropped into your organization’s newsletter, blog, or website.
If you choose to edit any of the materials, remember to keep the key messages for the topic.
Through Social Media
Social media is another great way to directly reach parents and the public. Prevent Child Injury offers sample posts for Twitter and Facebook and provides links to Pinterest boards, but feel free to create your own. Any network where you are active can be used to reach the target audience. Many of these resources, especially infographics and videos, are easily shared with a few clicks.
One way people find content on social media is through hashtags. Hashtags are the # symbol followed by key words and are added to social media posts so that users can join the conversation about a specific topic. For each toolkit, we have included a recommended hashtag.
Through Media Outreach
Prevent Child Injury encourages its members to reach out to the local media. The customizable press release has open space for information about your organization and can also be personalized with your logo and branding. Use the press release to pitch the story to newspapers and television stations and prepare for interviews by reading the media guide or the frequently asked questions document found in each toolkit. If you prefer to have a Prevent Child Injury expert speak on the record, share our experts’ contact information with reporters.
Through Legislative Advocacy
Many toolkits cover topics that might be affected by legislation. Before you start any legislative advocacy, learn about what laws are being proposed, and then add your voice to the debate. Remember to carefully follow any rules or policies set by federal law or your organization regarding lobbying.
Tracking
We’d love to hear stories of how you are using the materials. Please email us your successes, including pictures, screenshots, media coverage, outreach efforts, etc. This will help guide the development of materials in the future.
