Presenter Profile
Katie Mitten, LMSW, CPST
Injury Prevention Coordinator - Safe Kids Austin
Trauma Services
Dell Children's Medical Center
katie.mitten@ascension.org
Trauma Services
Dell Children's Medical Center
katie.mitten@ascension.org
Katie joined Dell Children's Medical Center as the Safe Kids Austin Coordinator in 2021. Prior to this she worked in policy advocacy, working to pass legislation that would improve children's and family health, promote healthy development during early childhood, and strengthen access to health coverage. Along with policy advocacy, she has experience conducting coalition and community engagement meetings and events. Katie has her Bachelor’s degree and Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin.
Presentations
Pandemic Parenting: Virtual Safe Baby University for Pregnant and Parenting Teens
Katie Mitten, LMSW, CPST
Part of session:
Lightning Round Presentations
Saturday, December 3, 2022, 10:15 AM to
11:00 AM
Background:
Safe Baby University (SBU) is a program that has been implemented by the Injury Prevention Team at a Level I pediatric trauma center for over a decade. The goal of SBU is to teach new or expectant parents under the age of 18 best practices for keeping their child safe at home, on the go, and at play. Upon completion of the program parents receive a variety of safety resources tailored to their unique needs. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic the program was implemented in person primarily at local high schools. In order to continue to provide the education and resources to young parents a virtual version of SBU was created and implemented in 2021 and 2022. Funding for this program comes from the hospital and hospital foundation.
Methods:
The new virtual format includes video presentations by local injury prevention experts, discussion guides for facilitators to use following the viewing of each video, and live virtual follow-up question and answer sessions with the Injury Prevention Team at a Level I pediatric trauma center and other community safety experts. Currently the virtual SBU program includes four topics: child passenger safety, safe sleep, water safety, and home safety. Parents who participate in the program are asked to complete pre- and post-surveys for each of the topics. In order for schools to participate they must identify staff who will lead the facilitated discussion with the parents and schedule the virtual question and answer with the Injury Prevention Team.
Results:
An initial evaluation of the effectiveness of this new virtual format shows that parents are retaining the knowledge and skills taught during SBU. Additionally, the virtual format requires less of our injury prevention team's time to implement allowing the program to reach a wider audience with less staff time dedicated to the program.
Conclusions:
We believe this virtual model, that includes videos, interactive guided discussion, and virtual question and answer, is relevant to other injury prevention professionals interested in educating young parents on best practices for keeping their child safe. We will continue to implement and evaluate SBU, and potentially explore a hybrid format for topics like child passenger safety in order to provide hands-on demonstrations.
Objectives:
- Key components of our virtual program for teen parents focused on increasing knowledge, skills, and behaviors that promote child safety.- Opportunities and challenges COVID presented for implementation of community education programs like SBU.
- Findings from our initial evaluation of this virtual program.