Our Center's overall goal is to strengthen public-private partnerships to address childhood agricultural injury prevention. We are: a) guiding a national childhood agricultural injury prevention strategy with key partners;b) conducting research and promoting interventions with practical implications;c) building capacity for sustained strategies;and d) widely communicating information to lay audiences. Barbara Lee, PhD, will continue serving as director, with Barbara Marlenga, PhD, serving as deputy director. Many of the proposed projects take advantage of our resources that have endured the test of time and partnerships that have been nurtured and augmented. All projects are interrelated directly per specified activities and/or indirectly through evaluation and communication strategies. Our cohesive management and innovative strategies have the potential for making notable advances in affecting positive changes. The Outreach Education Core, led by Matthew Kiefer, MD includes three projects. The Centerpiece """"""""Advanced Knowledge Mobilization and E-Communications"""""""" project interacts across all projects and partners. The """"""""Strengthening Organization Capacity"""""""" project develops executive-level relationships to influence corporate values and organization (voluntary) policies;while the """"""""Protecting Children While Parents Work in Agriculture"""""""" addresses a major childcare need for immigrant and migrant farm worker families. In the Prevention Core, led by Casper Bendixsen, PhD, we have two projects. """"""""Intervention through Inquiry: Beginning Farmers and Ranchers (BFR)"""""""" uses a cultural anthropology approach to uncover spheres of influence affecting decisions of people new to agriculture, especially those supported by new USDA initiatives for BFRs. The """"""""Developing a Sustainable SAY National Clearinghouse"""""""" project has the potential to align a time-limited resource into a long-term system that addresses the public's desire for streamlined youth agriculture safety training curriculums. Barbara Marlenga, PhD, leads the Research Core with two projects. """"""""Filling the Gaps in Child Agricultural Injury Data"""""""" explores existing national data sets for added value. """"""""Enhancing Supervisors'Skills and Employer Policies to Promote and Protect the Health of Youth Agricultural Workers"""""""" is a randomized controlled trial to test interventions among English and Spanish speaking workers. For the first time, we have a dedicated Evaluation Core, led by D. Paul Moberg, PhD, of UW-Madison, and his team will oversee Center-wide evaluations and guide individual projects.
The National Children's Center has a track record of synergist efforts and is poised to address Priorities set forth in the Blueprint for Protecting Children in Agriculture: 201 National Action Plan. The collective experiences of our robust and diverse team have provided insights and opportunities that will move behind traditional safety interventions by proactively engaging private-sector partners in a position to more effectively influence behaviors that protect children from agricultural hazards.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 15 publications
