Preventing injuries in your
community
A start-to-finish guide for your injury prevention project
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This guide is intended to support community groups in
planning, implementing and evaluating their community injury
prevention projects.
All examples are fictional. Every effort has been made to ensure
the information is correct. We do not take responsibility for any
omissions or inaccuracies.
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Contents
You can make a difference
2
How to get started
4
So, what’s the problem?
6
Work out what you want to do
8
Measure your success
11
Who’s going to do what?
14
What will it cost?
17
How’s it all going?
19
Tell the world about it
21
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You can make a difference
The most successful way to reduce injuries and make our communities safer is to get
people in the community to make it happen.
In these pages, you will find resources to help you plan, implement and evaluate your
injury prevention project.
What is an injury prevention project?
Here is an example of what can be done.
A group of parents got together and decided there were some things they wanted to
improve at their local primary school. It was a low-decile school and they knew funding
was going to be an issue, but they wanted to support their school and community in
whatever way they could.
The key issues were:
•
The school pool was not securely fenced, and during the summer children had
been climbing over the fence after pool hours
•
In the playground, at least two children had recently fallen from the adventure
equipment. The ground below was designed to have a deep layer of bark chips,
but these had been gradually worn away and the surface was too hard
•
Many of the children on bikes were not wearing their helmets on the way to and
from school.
The parents decided to deal with all of these issues by using project management, so
they could be clear and logical about:
•
What they wanted to achieve
•
How they were going to achieve it:
•
–
What the steps would be
–
Who would do what
–
Who else should be involved
–
What other resources they would need?
How they would know they had been successful.
We will track their progress as we go through the processes in these pages.
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What is involved?
1.
Have a good idea. For example, our group of concerned parents wanted to do
something to make their children safer at school and on their bikes.
2. Clarify the idea by researching the facts to see if there really is a problem and
how big the problem is. This is the research phase.
3. Decide exactly what you want to achieve. These are your project goals and
objectives.
4. Use your research to show what the problem is, then describe how you will
know when you have been successful in tackling it. This is your evaluation
strategy.
5. List all the tasks (and sometimes even the parts of each task), and who will do
them and when. This is your project plan.
6. Work out how much each task will cost and where the money will come from.
This is your budget.
7. Do the tasks. This is project implementation. While everyone is doing the
tasks, check that you are all following the plan and the costs.
8. Have regular meetings to check on progress. This is project monitoring.
9. When all the tasks are done, meet to celebrate a successful project. This is
project close-off.
10. One last task is to check if your project really has made a difference. This is
project evaluation.
11. Finally, if there are project partners or sponsors, they may want you to complete
a project report to show what you have achieved and how you did it. This is
always a good idea.
What makes a project successful?
Large commercial projects are seen as successful when they are completed on time and
within budget and achieve their objectives.
It is great to achieve a good result, however it is much better to do this by using a
process that ensures everyone involved is committed to making the project work and is
kept in the loop as it progresses.
Project management is a process of planning and completing tasks that need to be
done. If you have renovated part of your house, organised a family reunion or even
planned a holiday, you will have used some project management techniques.
The key is to have a goal with a number of parts to it. These need to be planned and
implemented to achieve a good result.
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How to get started
Community injury prevention projects can happen anywhere, any time. All it takes is
people to start talking about ways they could make their community safer and to feel
committed to doing something about it.
Our group
Our group of concerned parents wanted to do something to make their children
safer at school and on their bikes.
It started as a casual conversation at a barbecue. There were five people who really
wanted to do something about it and were willing to get involved. They held a
meeting the following week and decided to form a team to tackle three issues:
The school pool
Sally and Simon were most concerned about the school pool. It was not well fenced
and during the summer children had been climbing over the fence after pool hours.
The group discussed this and concluded that the hazards that needed to be fixed
were the insecure fence and unsupervised children in and around the pool.
The adventure equipment in the play area
One of Hine and Tusi’s boys had fallen hard from the adventure equipment. He was
bruised and sore, and Hine and Tusi said the surface needed to be improved before
someone was seriously injured. The group agreed.
Children not wearing bike helmets
Paula was passionate about making sure all children on bikes wore their helmets.
She had been injured when she fell off her bike many years earlier. The doctor had
told her she would have had brain damage if she hadn’t been wearing her helmet.
Every day when she biked to school with her little girl, she saw school kids with their
helmets on the handlebars and not on their heads. Everyone agreed that this was
another issue they should tackle.
The ‘project team’ is created
As the team wanted to be successful and enjoy the process, they decided to use
project management as a way of keeping everything they did on track. Paula
volunteered to be the project leader, as she had previously worked in a project
management job and had seen how effective it could be. Paula was working part
time, so also felt she had enough spare time to do this role.
The group decided that Paula would go to the school and talk to the principal
about their concerns and offer to work with the Board of Trustees to make some
improvements.
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The group decided to have weekly meetings, first to plan and then to keep up with
progress as they dealt with the various parts of the project.
Their first task would be to undertake some research into the areas in which they
were particularly interested, and report their findings at the next meeting.
Example of group tasks:
•
Identify your project team
•
Appoint a project leader
•
Give tasks to members
•
Set up regular meetings.
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So, what’s the problem?
Researching your project
If your injury prevention project is to be successful, you need to be clear about the issue
you are addressing.
Before you start, do some research. Is there really a problem? Get some facts and figures
from places like:
•
ACC – www.acc.co.nz
•
Statistics NZ – www.stats.govt.nz
•
NZ Transport Agency – www.nzta.govt.nz
•
Ministry of Health – www.moh.govt.nz
•
Plunket – www.plunket.org.nz
•
Safekids – www.safekids.org.nz
•
New Zealand Injury Prevention Strategy (NZIPS) – www.nzips.govt.nz
•
Injury Prevention Research Unit (IPRU) at the University of Otago –
www.otago.ac.nz/ipru
•
Other websites
•
Your local library.
Information checklist
Here is a list of data you might want to collect:
Injury data
Types of injuries
How injuries happened
Where injuries
happened
What age groups?
What ethnic groups?
Are there any trends?
(eg getting worse?)
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Our group
The group’s research programme covered:
The school
Paula spoke to the school principal about all three issues. As expected, the school
was short of funding, however it was willing to accept whatever assistance the
group could provide, and to work in partnership with them.
The school pool
Sally and Simon visited several New Zealand websites and found lots of information
on drowning. For example, they found out that:
•
Drowning is one of the major causes of injury-related deaths among New
Zealand children. 14% of all accidental deaths of children aged 0–14 years are
from drowning
•
Each year, on average, 12 children aged 0–14 years drown
•
Childhood drowning typically happens when children are left unattended in
or near water.
The playground
Hine and Tusi also found good information on the internet such as:
•
Between 1997 and 2001, an average of two children a year aged 0–14 years
died from a fall-related injuries
•
Causes of these fatalities include falling from one level to another and falling
from playground equipment, down stairs and down steps
•
More than half of all injury-related hospital admissions for children aged
0–14 years are as a result of falls.
The ACC website had some great case studies about successful injury prevention
work in schools. Go to www.acc.co.nz and click on Preventing Injuries /At School to
read them.
Cycle helmets
Paula found out that:
•
Children in the 5–14 year age group have the highest incidence of cyclerelated injuries
•
Wearing a cycle helmet reduces the risk of head injury by 85%, brain injury
by 88% and severe brain injury by at least 75%. (These statistics are taken
from American research, however the risk reduction is likely to be similar in
New Zealand.)
This information showed they were on the right track, and also gave some ideas on
how to approach their project. They were now ready to set some clear goals.
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Work out what you want to do
Project goals and objectives
Clear statements about what you want to achieve will:
•
Keep the team focused
•
Help communicate your project to other people and groups. This is particularly
important if you want their support
•
Help you to evaluate the project’s success.
How to decide on your project goals and objectives
Step one: Decide on the project’s overall goal.
For an injury prevention project, this will usually be about making people safer and
reducing injuries, for example in a focused topic, location, age or ethnic group.
Step two: Decide on your specific project objectives.
Your research will give you information to help you be clear about the objectives. Often
there will be a number of objectives, but you need to make sure they are:
•
Specific: describe exactly what you are aiming to achieve
•
Achievable: think about the resources (such as people and money) and time
available
•
Measurable: so you can be sure at the end of the project that you have made a
difference.
Step three: Write down your goals and objectives and put them up on a wall or
somewhere visible. This will help keep you motivated and on track if things get
difficult.
Things can change
Projects can sometimes be hard to keep on track. Goals and objectives can change. This
is not necessarily a bad thing, as change can be the result of better information, or a
change in the available resources.
It is important to be aware that this can happen and be ready to change and adapt
if it will mean an improved result.
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Our group
Once our group had done their research, they felt ready to decide on their project
goals and objectives.
They decided that their overall project goal was:
‘To work with our local primary school to help make our children safer at school
and on their bikes’.
They then looked at their specific project objectives. These seemed to be obvious:
1.
To reduce the risk of children drowning in the school pool by improving the
pool fencing and supervision.
2. To reduce the risk of injuries in the adventure play area by improving the
surface.
3. To make sure every student wears their bike helmet whenever they are
biking to and from school.
When they checked that their objectives were specific, achievable and measurable,
they thought the first two met the criteria. Their research had shown that even
though no one at their school had drowned or been seriously injured in the
playground, drowning and falls were serious problems nationwide for this age
group, and their project would reduce the ongoing risks in their school.
For the third objective, the research showed that cycle injuries to children were
a serious problem, and that wearing helmets reduced the risk of head injuries.
However, the group didn’t know exactly how many children did or didn’t wear their
helmets when cycling to or from their school.
Paula decided this needed some more research. She persuaded two friends to help
her do a little survey on helmet use. They positioned themselves on the three streets
that led to the school, and every morning and afternoon for one week they wrote
down the number of children on bikes who were and weren’t wearing their helmets.
They found that, on average, 30% of the children were not wearing their helmets at
all.
This meant they now had a measurable objective about wearing helmets. They
altered their third objective to be:
‘To increase the wearing of bike helmets to 100%, so that every primary school student wears
their bike helmet whenever they are biking to and from our school’.
They were keen to get started on the project, but first they wanted to show their
project goals and objectives to the school Board, as they knew they would need their
support. All five of them went to the next Board of Trustees meeting and presented
their research results and what they wanted to achieve.
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The Board was already aware of the problems, but had limited funding. They were
impressed with the research and the aims of the project, and suggested that at the
next Board meeting they brainstorm some actions together with the group. The
professional way the group had presented the information motivated the Board to
do something about these issues.
The Board then asked how the group planned to evaluate the success of their
project. They agreed that deciding on the evaluation process would be their next
step.
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Measure your success
An evaluation strategy
A community injury prevention project is all about making people safer and reducing
injuries. Evaluation is about measuring how effective the project has been in achieving
the goals and objectives.
Why do evaluation?
Even though project evaluation can be challenging, having an evaluation strategy has
many benefits, such as:
•
It gives your project credibility with people in the community, especially if you
have sponsors
•
It ensures you are not wasting your time and resources on something that will
be ineffective
•
It provides evidence that your project has been effective.
Your evaluation strategy
An evaluation strategy can be a statement:
‘This is our project goal. We are doing it because we have done some research and
identified an issue. When we have completed our project, we will evaluate it to show we
have achieved an improvement’.
If you have a number of project objectives, for each objective ask:
1.
What is the situation now – how do we know there is a problem? (This is your
initial data or information that you can use as a benchmark.)
2. How will we measure the impact our project has had? (This is your evaluation
strategy.)
The challenges of evaluation
If your project goals are very broad, it can be difficult to measure your success once the
project is complete.
For example, a project might aim to reduce head-on car crashes by increasing people’s
awareness of the risks of crossing the centre line and therefore change the way people
behave. However, a person’s driving behaviour is caused by many different things, such
as their driving skills, how slowly a truck in front is travelling or even the fact that there
is a police car at the side of the road. Although you might be able to get good data on
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the number of crashes before and after this project, it would be hard to be certain that
the awareness project alone achieved (or didn’t achieve) the result.
A project’s evaluation strategy should be decided when the goals and objectives are
being developed. This will help ensure the project is realistic in what it can achieve and
how that achievement can best be measured.
Evaluation techniques
Collecting benchmark information
You will have already done this when you were thinking about your project goal and
objectives and doing your research. It could include:
•
Research on websites or in articles
•
Observing or surveying unsafe behaviour
•
Interviewing people in the community to find out about the problem
•
Setting up groups of people (focus groups) to discuss the issues.
What you do will depend on the resources available.
Evaluation
When your project is complete (or still underway if it is a long-term project), you can
evaluate its impact.
The techniques are the same as those you used for collecting your benchmark
information. It’s a matter of comparing the before and after results.
Reporting your results
It is a good idea to document everything you do in a project, including your evaluation
strategy and the results from your evaluation. It could be part of your final project report
and useful for future projects.
Our group
Our group was fairly confident they would be able to evaluate the impact of their project.
Their project goal was:
To work with our local primary school to help make our children safer at school
and on their bikes.
Their objectives were:
1.
To reduce the risk of children drowning in the school pool by improving the
pool fencing and supervision.
2. To reduce the risk of injuries in the adventure play area by improving the surface.
3. To increase the wearing of bike helmets to 100%, so that every primary
school student wears their bike helmet whenever they are biking to and from
our school.
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For the first objective they could check that the fence had been completed and
was securely child-proof, and that any time the pool was open it was properly
supervised.
For the second objective they could check that the hard surface of the adventure
playground had been improved with extra bark.
The third objective was slightly different. As Paula had done the survey on the number
of children who were wearing bike helmets before the project, they could repeat the
survey after the project to see if the objective of 100% compliance had been achieved.
The next meeting with the Board
At the next Board meeting the group discussed their evaluation strategy. The
principal was happy with the strategy for the bike helmet objective, but felt the first
two objectives could be improved. He had looked at a Tawa School project and was
keen to implement a similar initiative in the school.
Tawa School had been concerned about injuries in the school grounds, so they had
conducted a survey and had teachers observing what was happening. They recorded
all accidents and near-misses in a register. They noticed that most of the problems
happened in the adventure playground area. They designed some teaching material
and the whole school learnt how to identify and deal with hazards. They were very
pleased with the increased awareness of hazards and how students were reporting
them more often, including providing suggestions on how to deal with them.
The full case study about Tawa School can be found on the ACC website (www.acc.
co.nz under Preventing Injuries/At School).
The principal said his staff were keen to do something similar, and they would
include the swimming pool area as well. Teachers would do all of that part of the
project, including the evaluation of the impact of their teaching on topics like hazard
reporting, awareness and safer behaviour.
An additional objective was given for the project:
To increase students’ awareness and reporting of hazards in the school grounds
and swimming pool.
The new objective would be evaluated by the teachers. They would review the log of
reported accidents and incidents to see what had changed, and would also observe
students’ behaviour to see what improvements had been made.
The group was happy with this, as it would add a great deal of value to the whole school
community, and it left them to concentrate on the other three specific objectives.
They and the Board also discussed the tasks they planned to do, and they agreed to
come back to the Board with their project plan.
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Who’s going to do what?
Plan your project
A project plan is a logical way of deciding on all the tasks in your project, who will do
them, and when they will be done. As you decide on each task, you should be thinking
about the project risks and how you will manage them.
Project plans can range from basic to highly complex. It is important to keep your
plan appropriate for the type of project you are doing. The key thing is to ensure that
everyone involved knows what is to be done, by whom and when, and that you will all
be able to track your progress as you go.
Create a project plan
Here are the steps most people take to create a project plan:
1.
Brainstorm all the tasks that make up the project. This is easier if you break the
project down into sections. There could be, for example, a section for each objective,
and that can be broken down even further into individual tasks. It is a good idea to
write each task onto a Post-it note or something similar. Some projects also have
‘milestones’, for example a date by which a certain task must be completed.
2. Decide approximately how long each task will take, and write this on the Post-it
notes as well. Use whatever unit of time suits your project, for example months,
weeks or days.
3. Decide on the best order in which to complete the tasks. At this point you need
to take into account things such as:
•
Which tasks must be completed before others can commence (these are
sometimes called milestones)
•
Which tasks can be done at the same time
•
Who is available and when they are available
4. Arrange the Post-it notes on a large sheet of paper in what you consider the
right order, and move them around until you are all satisfied.
5. If you wish, you can then create a table or spreadsheet that lists the tasks down
the left column and the weeks or months along the top row. See the example of
a simple project plan done by our group (on page 16).
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6. If it is a complex project, involves a lot of resources or has a tight timeframe
and there is potential for things to go wrong, you could also write a risk
management plan. List all the potential risks, and for each risk decide how likely
it is to happen, and what would be the impact on the project if it did. For each
risk that has a high likelihood and high impact describe the actions you will take
to reduce the risk. This could include keeping a close eye on project progress,
regularly monitoring costs, and having regular project meetings to keep
everyone well informed.
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Project plans are alive
Things often change in projects, and it is useful to amend your plan to reflect those
changes. Some project teams keep a copy of their first plan and have an additional plan
that is always current.
It can be useful for future projects to go back to the original plan at the end of the
project and see how much it has changed.
Our group
The school Board had told our group there were parts of the project that they would
complete in the school, however they were keen to see the whole project plan.
Now the group had to identify all the tasks and how they could be done. They did
this in consultation with the principal and Board members, friends, family and the
community.
They discovered that some things that were quite straightforward to achieve. For
example:
•
The teaching staff would do all the surveys, log incidents and teach about
hazards, then evaluate what had changed
•
There was enough money in the school budget to pay for the extra bark
chips for the playground, but the Board was hoping the group could get
someone to transport it and spread it. Simon’s uncle had a trucking business
and he was happy to do it one Saturday morning. The group knew they
could get a group of volunteers together to spread it across the playground
•
The school had already purchased materials for the pool fence, and just
needed someone to install it. Tusi was a builder, and as things were looking
quiet for his business in October, he said he would get his workers to do it
•
Paula found out that the New Zealand Police had a Youth Education Service
(YES) that worked alongside teachers to provide children with all sorts of
safety information, including road safety. They were contacted and agreed
to help the school with a bike safety programme in October.
Once they had brainstormed all the tasks (and who would do them) onto Post-it
notes, they came up with a simple project plan. The plan took into account the
requirement for the pool fence and supervision roster to be completed before the
pool opened in mid November. They also decided to use a different colour for each
objective in the plan. They agreed it was a very simple project that had minimal
risks, so they did not need a risk management plan.
Our group’s project plan
The school Board and principal were pleased with the plan and the parts for which
they were responsible. However, they did want to check that there would not be any
hidden costs. That was the next thing for the group to look at.
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School Safety Project Plan – 17 August
Project goal: ‘To work with our local primary school to help make our children safer
at school and on their bikes’
Tasks
September
Survey and
interviews of
students (two
weeks)
Teachers
Logging of
incidents (ongoing)
Teachers &
students
Teaching hazard
awareness (two
months)
October
November
December
Teachers &
students
Teachers &
students
Teachers &
students
Teachers
Teachers
Evaluation of
incident logging
and awareness
(four weeks)
Playground bark
delivery (one day)
Simon’s uncle
Playground bark
spreading (one
day)
Project team
& volunteers
Pool fence building
(one week)
Tusi and his
workers
Pool supervision
roster (one week
to organise, then
ongoing)
Project team
& volunteers
Bike helmets – first
survey
Bike helmets
and bike safety
education (four
weeks)
Bike helmets –
second survey (one
week)
Teachers
Teachers
Project team
& volunteers
Project team
& volunteers
Already done
by Paula
Teachers and
Police Youth
Education
Service
Paula and
friends
Project evaluation
(two weeks)
Our group
Write project
report for Board
(one week)
Paula
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What will it cost?
Costing your project
All projects have costs attached to them, even if it is only the cost of volunteers giving
up their time. A costing, or project budget, is simply a list of all of the costs involved.
If your project is being sponsored, it is important to complete a budget to ensure the
sponsor knows what the costs will be and is confident their money is being spent
sensibly.
How is a costing done?
Once you have completed your project plan, it is easy to go through each task and
decide if there are any costs associated with it. List these in a logical way, such as on
a table similar to the project plan, then you will be able to track your spending as the
project proceeds.
What are some of the costs?
Here is a checklist of possible costs to think about as you go through your project tasks:
Project costs checklist
Applicable for this project?
Items
No
Yes
If yes, how much?
$
Photocopying
Postage
Phone calls (eg cell phones, toll calls)
Stationery (eg Post-it notes, pens)
Printing (eg flyers)
Food (eg morning tea for volunteers)
Travel (eg mileage)
Materials, safety equipment etc
Paid help (eg non-volunteers)
Other
Total project cost:
$
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Where can we get funding?
One of the key questions is ‘where are we going to get funds for this’. A great place to
start is the website of the Funding Information Service (www.fis.org.nz). This website
includes information about sponsorship, who to contact and how to apply for funding.
Other options include fundraisers, such as selling biscuits or providing car washes,
seeking ‘in-kind support’, such as a hardware store providing materials, or a school
providing students for fundraising.
Our group
The school Board had asked for a project costing. Paula went through all the tasks
in the project plan to identify the costs. She found that the costs of the project were
very low, as the school was arranging the bark purchase for the playground from
their own funds and had already paid for the material for the pool fence.
The other costs were covered by the school, Simon’s uncle, Tusi, the New Zealand
Police Youth Education Service and labour supplied by volunteers.
There were a few minor things, such as stationery costs plus morning teas for the
volunteers, but the project group was happy to contribute to those.
Paula talked through the costings with the principal, who was happy that everything
had been accounted for and there would be no surprises.
It was now time to start the project.
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How’s it all going?
Project implementation
Project implementation is doing all the project tasks in the way they have been planned.
Monitoring and progress
You are working with people who have complex lives and may not always be available
as you have planned. Other factors that can affect the project are simple things like the
weather or illness. You will need to be flexible and patient, and keep monitoring the
situation.
What is project monitoring?
Your project plan is your key tool for keeping track of your project. If the project has very
tight deadlines or high costs, monitoring needs to be very thorough. This is particularly
important when there are key milestones, which mean that a certain task must be
completed before another one can begin. If milestones are not met, it can throw the
whole project off track, so pay special attention to them. Always pay attention to costs –
they are well known for increasing beyond those planned.
Project monitoring mostly comes down to good communication. Regular update
meetings of the project team help everyone to check on progress, and good
communication with all other parties will ensure no surprises. Page 20 shows a
template you can use to record the actions from the meetings. If you have project
sponsors or partners, keep them informed – they will expect it as part of the agreement
they have with you.
You will probably need to revise your original plan at some stage. Using your plan
document (or the notes with the tasks on them) will help you to reshuffle the tasks in a
logical way. You can use the new plan as a way to let everyone know what is happening
with the project.
What is project close-off?
This is the time for celebration!
It means you have completed the project tasks and can now reflect on the experience –
the highs and lows – and what you have achieved.
Projects require considerable effort from a lot of people, and celebrations are an
important way to acknowledge this. They can be simple, such as a morning tea. They
will be appreciated by everyone.
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The last remaining task is to evaluate the impact of the project and, if necessary, write a
brief report.
Project meeting action list template
Action list from project meeting on ……/……/……
Action
Person responsible
Deadline
Comment
Our group
Our group found they were able to move through their project with few problems.
They had to delay the bark delivery because of heavy rain, and getting the
volunteers organised to spread it required more time than they expected. The pool
fence was built in time for the pool opening and the supervision roster was easy to
organise among willing parents.
The school’s part of the project went well, and the teachers enjoyed teaching hazard
awareness. They noticed a difference in the students’ behaviour almost straight
away, with children reporting hazards and also suggesting how they could be dealt
with.
When the Police Youth Education Services person did her sessions, she was
impressed with the students’ knowledge about hazards, and how receptive they
were to all the messages about road safety and the importance of wearing bike
helmets.
At the celebration afternoon tea, the whole group felt they had really made a
difference to the whole school community. Now all that remained was to evaluate
the project’s impacts and to report them to the school.
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Tell the world about it
Evaluate and report
The final evaluation of a project is a matter of going back to your evaluation strategy
and implementing it to see the impact your project had, and if it achieved its goals and
objectives.
If your evaluation strategy involved, for example, researching injury data and observing,
surveying or interviewing people, you now go back to these sources of information to
see what has changed.
For shorter projects, injury data is unlikely to be available to make comparisons, and
you might have to decide to leave that until much later, or collect information through
interviews or observing behaviour.
What you do will depend on the available resources.
Report your findings
There is huge value in writing up a final project report. Sponsors and project partners
will expect it, and it will also add to the injury prevention information and resources
available to other groups in the community that are keen to undertake projects.
Project reports
Your project report should be clear and not complicated. It can include:
1.
An overview of the project, why it was started, its goal and objectives.
2. The project team members and an acknowledgement of the sponsors, project
partners and volunteers.
3. An overview of the main activities carried out and the actual costs.
4. A brief statement about the challenges and successes the team had. (This
information can be very helpful for other projects.)
5. The findings from the project evaluation. You can include tables of data or
simply discussions of observations of things that have changed (or not changed)
as a result of the project.
6. A conclusion statement about the project’s success in achieving its goals and
objectives.
7. If anything else remains to be done, some recommendations for actions and
who will be responsible for doing them.
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The report should be discussed with the project team then sent to the sponsors and
other interested people. Your local media or council may be interested in it too.
Congratulations
Celebrate and acknowledge yourselves for your efforts to make our communities a safer
and better place to live.
Our group
Project evaluation
All the group members were involved in the evaluation. They:
•
Inspected the pool fence to check it was secure – it was
•
Did random checks to see that the pool was open at the right times and was
always supervised – it was
•
Checked the bark in the playground to ensure it was deep enough and didn’t
have any stones or other objects in it – it was
•
Did another observation for a week to check the number of students wearing
their bike helmets. There were only three or four who weren’t. When they
spoke to them they found that one had lost his helmet and the others had
forgotten them. The good thing was they all were very aware of the dangers
of not wearing helmets, and by the end of the week everyone was wearing
helmets
•
Spoke to the principal and the teachers about the accident and near-miss
reports and observations of behaviour in the school grounds. They were
noticing that students were much more safety conscious and aware of
hazards and suggesting ways to improve safety. The staff felt it had been
a very successful project and were determined to keep on teaching with a
focus on safety.
Project report
Paula wrote up a simple report for the Board, describing the project team, their
goals and objectives, their main project tasks and who was involved, the challenges,
and the very successful evaluation results. She also acknowledged the wonderful
contributions made not just by the group, but also by the volunteers and the school.
Success!
The principal and the Board were delighted with the whole project, and sent the
report out as part of a school newsletter. The local newspaper also picked up the
story, describing the group as ‘local heroes’.
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Notes
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For further information, contact an Injury
Prevention Consultant at your local ACC
branch or call 0800 844 657.
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www.acc.co.nz
0800 844 657
ACC5209 Printed April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-478-31463-2
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