Planning a Prevention Initiative

The worksheet below is a guide to help you identify and plan prevention efforts in your community.  The goal of Child Death Review is the prevention of child deaths.  The Child Death Review process is used to better understand how and why a child died in order to identify what needs to be done to prevent other deaths.

The death of a child due to preventable causes is perhaps the greatest loss a community experiences.  A child’s death should be the sentinel event which catalyzes action to ensure that all other child are safe, healthy and protected. For every child that dies due to preventable causes, there are probably other children at risk.  Prevention efforts are commonly categorized into three different areas, each focused on a different level of preventability.

The worksheet below is a guide to help you identify and plan prevention efforts in your community.  The goal of Child Death Review is the prevention of child deaths.  The Child Death Review process is used to better understand how and why a child died in order to identify what needs to be done to prevent other deaths.

The death of a child due to preventable causes is perhaps the greatest loss a community experiences.  A child’s death should be the sentinel event which catalyzes action to ensure that all other child are safe, healthy and protected. For every child that dies due to preventable causes, there are probably other children at risk.  Prevention efforts are commonly categorized into three different areas, each focused on a different level of preventability.

Prevention Planning Worksheet

By completing this worksheet, you will better understand the risk factors and protective factors in your community, and be able to develop prevention initiatives based on your community’s own unique situations. You will also be able to narrow the range of possible interventions, and focus your efforts on a specific prevention initiative.

1.  Catalyst

What child death event or other event catalyzed your interest in developing a prevention program?

2. Goal

What child deaths do you hope to prevent? (We want to prevent deaths caused by ______to children ages ______ who live______.)

3.  Scope of the Problem

Utilize data sources to identify the scope of the problem in your community.  Where appropriate use the following:

Death certificates MI Crash Statistics
Medical Examiner Reports EMS Reports
Hospital Discharge Data Trauma Registry
DHS Data CMH Data
Court Data Child Death Review Program Data
State Crime Reports (MICR) Other Sources: list here

4.  Risk Factors

What factors do you believe led to or caused the death?
Think broadly of all the risk factors which played a role in the death.

Medical

Social

Economic

Behavioral

Environmental

Product Safety

Any other risk factors that are relevant

Single out and prioritize those factors you feel are both significant and amenable to change. These factors will be where you will focus your efforts.

5.  Protective Factors

What factors do you believe prevent injury or death in other children?
Think broadly of all the protective factors which keep children safe. 

Medical

Social

Economic

Behavioral

Environmental

Product Safety

Any other protective factors that are relevant 

Single out and prioritize those factors you feel are both significant and amenable to enhancement.  These factors will be where you will focus your efforts.

6.  Prevention Goal

The goal is a general statement about what you plan to achieve through your prevention effort. 

Combine the statement from item 2 and the risk or protective factors you plan to focus on to identify your goal.

7.  Outcome Objectives

These are simply restatements of the goal(s) in terms that are measurable, time-limited, and specific to a well-defined target population. 

Develop as many or as few as you feel are necessary to achieve your goal(s)

8.  Potential Partners

Are there any agencies, coalitions or community groups that are currently addressing this problem or should be involved? 

Are there others who might provide beneficial collaboration? (e.g., multi-purpose collaborative bodies (MPCBs), media, policy makers, community leaders, agencies).

9.  Possible Interventions

Based on the risk and protective factors you have identified, and the goals and objectives you've set out to accomplish, what are some possible interventions?

Here's some advice to help you in developing them:

  • Find out what other communities are doing to address the same or similar issues.  This step can save you much time and effort that might otherwise be spent “reinventing the wheel.”

  • The state Child Death Review Program Office has literature and helpful advice on best practices and promising approaches to many child health and safety issues.  For more information, call (517) 324-7330. Prevention Research has found that effective interventions:
  1. Address multiple causes.
  2. Address problems at multiple levels (i.e. individual, family, community, environment.)
  3. Continue over a long period of time (6 months or more.)

Consider the following list of different types of prevention efforts:

  1. System changes (e.g., increased law enforcement patrols, housing safety changes.
  2. Interagency cooperation (e.g., memo of understanding between EMS and law enforcement on death scene preservation)
  3. Public education (e.g., public service announcements on shaken babies)
  4. Improved criminal investigation or prosecution (e.g., reinvestigation of cases not previously thought to be homicides)
  5. Other improved investigation (e.g., implementing policy for drug screen in SIDS cases)
  6. Protection of surviving siblings or family members (e.g., psychiatric services, grief counseling, medical care)
  7. Legislation (e.g., new laws requiring fencing around pools)
  8. Traffic safety (e.g., new traffic signs, lights, crosswalks)
  9. Expanded financial resources (e.g., funding new positions in law enforcement)
  10. Better understanding of particular cause of death (e.g., improved understanding of SIDS by non-medical professionals)
  11. Training tool (e.g., using team to train other professionals)
  12. 1Product safety (e.g., medical or household products). List your intervention ideas. Include the specific target population for each intervention (e.g. ER physicians in county X, low-income single mothers age 15-24 in township Y, teenage males age 14-18 in city Z):

10.  Description

Choose one or more of the above intervention ideas, and describe:

  • How will it reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors among your target population
  • How will it lead to the achievement of one or more of your objectives?

11.  Implementation

Here’s where you put your chosen intervention idea(s) into action!

What would be the staffing requirements for implementing the intervention?

Describe each staff position.

  • Position
  • Description of duties
  • Number of individuals needed at this position
  • Individuals to give preliminary consideration for this position
  • Hours for each individual (Total or per week)
  • Training needed

What other resources will be required?

  • Facilities
  • Equipment
  • Transportation
  • Documentation
  • Other

How will the implementation proceed?

By creating precise, detailed implementation protocols, you can greatly increase the likelihood that your plans become reality. 

On a separate sheet of paper, sketch out the following:

  • Staff role definitions.
  • Timeline for implementation, broken down into specific tasks and activities.
  • Instructions for proceeding with each task.
  • Visualize some potential problems and how they can be handled.

12.  Evaluation

This is a crucial element to any successful intervention.  By creating your evaluation plan in advance, you can use it to during your intervention to monitor progress and identify any adjustments that will improve it.  At the end of your intervention, your evaluation plan will also help you answer that most critical of questions: “What did the intervention achieve?” 

  • The process evaluation is where you assess the implementation of your intervention.  Your implementation protocols will come in handy in answering the following questions:
  1. How much of the intervention did those who were exposed to it actually receive?
  2. How precisely were the implementation protocols followed?
  • Develop some specific ways you could answer these questions:
  1. Survey people exposed to your intervention and ask them if they recalled certain key aspects of it.
  2. Select items from your implementation protocols that you believe to be essential for the intervention's success, and have staff monitor their implementation.
  • The outcome evaluation indicates whether the intervention led to the achievement of the program’s goals and objectives.
  • Develop some specific ways to assess this.  These should flow naturally from your program’s goals and objectives, and could include:
  1. reductions in rates of child mortality and morbidity for certain causes.
  2. changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior among those exposed to the intervention.
  3. changes in the physical environment (posting of new stop signs, reductions in air pollutants, etc.).
  4. changes in public policy.
  5. changes in agency practice.

13.  Funding and Other Resources

Review your implementation plan.

Do you know of where you might acquire the resources these tasks and activities require?  List the resources needed along with a potential source of them below.

Resource Needed Potential Source
  • Review your implementation plan.  Do you know where you might acquire the resources these tasks and activities require? List the resources needed below along with their potential source:

Resource Needed Potential Source
  • What are some potential sources of funding for your plan?  List them below.

Congratulations!  Your prevention program plan is complete!