Keep Watch celebrates Childrens Week
Children’s Week is a national, annual event held in late October each year, dedicated to celebrating children, promoting the Rights of the Child as proclaimed by the United Nations in 1954, and reminding us of our responsibility to advocate for children as citizens. Children’s Week is an opportunity for the community to engage in a variety of activities that facilitate, support and encourage children and their families to play, learn and grow together.
Each year various organisations around Perth host events and activities to celebrate Children’s Week, and the Royal Life Saving Society WA attends many of these to promote Keep Watch toddler drowning prevention messages to parents. This year we were lucky to participate in events across the metro area including Whiteman Park, Kwinana, Cockburn, Rockingham and Armadale.
Drowning is the leading cause of preventable death in the under-five age group. On average four toddlers drown each year in WA and parents are urged to keep close watch of children around all types of water to prevent toddler drowning. Event participation is just one of the strategies used by Keep Watch to promote the program’s four key messages - supervise children around water, prevent children's access to water, teach your child swimming and water safety skills, and learn CPR.
Having a Keep Watch stall at this week's events gave staff many opportunities to talk to parents about strategies to keep their kids safe around water. We encouraged parents to enrol in the Heart Beat Club community CPR course, talked about swimming lessons and handed out Pool Safety Checklists to enable people to check their pool fence and gate ahead of summer. Meanwhile the kids were kept occupied (and wet!) at our fun water play tables.
Royal Life Saving would like to thank the Meerilinga Young Children's Foundation for convening Children’s Week in WA We're also thankful to all the community organisations and local councils who invited our Keep Watch team to attend their events.
If you'd like to invite Keep Watch to your local event complete the form at the link below.
