Many of the children that end up in the Children’s Minnesota Emergency Department are there due to injuries that could have been prevented. As part of a legal settlement following the death of a boy from furniture tipping over, Children’s received money to address child safety. Children’s Injury Prevention Program seeks to educate families on the ways in which traumatic injury can be prevented. Most injury prevention information is in English and in written language, making it difficult to reach families and communities with low literacy and/or limited English proficiency. Children’s Minnesota came to us for help in overcoming these language barriers. Their ask was for a series of injury prevention videos that could be simple enough without voice over or text on screen for the whole community to understand. The development of the animations included creative conversations meant to remove as much cultural bias as possible from the messages, leaving the viewers to imply their own understanding of “home” within the scenes. We covered the largest source of injuries first: furniture tips, falls and burns. These videos will be used in Children’s ER and clinic waiting rooms, on their website and social channels and with events.
