Evaluating the effect of child home safety training upon three family support practitioner groups: a mixed-methods study

Abstract

Aims: Unintentional injuries in the home contribute substantially to preschool child morbidity and mortality. Practitioners such as health visitors, family mentors and children’s centre staff are well-positioned to facilitate child injury prevention by providing home safety advice to families, and training may enhance their ability to do so. We aimed to assess the impact of child home safety training for these practitioners. Methods: An explanatory mixed-methods design was used. Practitioners completed questionnaires before, and up to 7 months after, receiving child home safety training and took part in interviews. Seventy-eight health visitors, 72 family mentors and 11 children’s centre staff members completed questionnaires. Items were used to calculate scores on home safety knowledge, confidence to provide home safety advice and belief that child home safety promotion is important. Thematic analysis of interviews with seven health visitors and nine family mentors, open-ended responses to the questionnaires and an additional evaluation form was conducted to explore attendees’ perceptions of the training and its impact. In addition, seven health visitors and six children’s centre staff who had received no training were interviewed. Results: Knowledge was greater post-training than pre-training across all participants ( p < .001). When practitioner groups were analysed separately, there were significant increases in family mentors’ knowledge ( p < .001) and belief ( p = .016), and health visitors’ confidence ( p = .0036). Qualitative findings indicated that most training session attendees valued the training, believed their practice relating to child home safety had improved as a result, and felt further similar training sessions would be beneficial. Those who had not attended the sessions described a need for more child home safety training. Conclusions: Delivering training to practitioners providing child home safety promotion to families with preschool children can enhance injury prevention knowledge, beliefs and confidence and positively impact on home safety promotion by practitioners.