RoSPA Influencing & Informing
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The Safety Connections E-Bulletin, containing a range of health and safety information, was sent to around 30,000 people each week. |
Public Affairs
RoSPA continued to play an active role in the European Child Safety Alliance (ECSA) on both water safety and home safety issues. Organisations in other countries have drawn heavily on RoSPA’s years of experience in these areas.
The Society had a major input in the development of a Child Safety Strategy for Scotland as part of an ECSA project. A survey was conducted to find out children’s views about safety, and RoSPA has lobbied the Scottish Parliament to adopt the completed strategy for Scotland.
RoSPA also took part in the working group of the European Network for the Safety of Elderly People (EUNESE), helping to recruit members to set up the new network and arrange the organisation’s first conference in Brussels.
RoSPA’s Director of Public Affairs, Janice Cave, capped her three-year presidency of the European Public Health Alliance by chairing an international conference on public health in Bratislava. On retiring from the presidency, she was made an Honorary Member of EPHA, only the third person to receive this honour.
Parties of visitors from Denmark, Korea and Japan visited RoSPA to learn more about its work.
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RoSPA’s Deputy Chief Executive, Errol Taylor is presented with a gift by members of a visiting Korean delegation as David Yearley, RoSPA’s Play Safety Manager looks on. |
RoSPA’s award-winning website received around 2.5 million visits during the year. Road safety documents alone were downloaded over 250,000 times. In all, the Society provides 13 stand-alone websites covering a variety of safety areas.
The Safety Connections E-Bulletin, containing a range of health and safety information, was sent to around 30,000 people each week. RoSPA’s own journals continued to be an important source of information for safety professionals.
The RoSPA Information Centre’s document library contains over 26,000 items. New books and articles are added each week to ensure that the collection remains up to date and authoritative. The SydneyPLUS Library Management System has recently been upgraded.
The Information Centre continues to use a range of resources to answer the varied enquiries from users, including RoSPA members and the public.
Despite data in the DTI’s Home and Leisure Accident Surveillance System(HASS/LASS) being at least five years old, interest in the statistics - now administered by RoSPA - is still strong. Researchers often request detailed search reports and hundreds of people visit the HASS/LASS website to find their own answers.
RoSPA answered thousands of enquiries from the media and took part in hundreds of safety-related television and radio broadcasts. Opportunities were taken to promote the idea of “sensible safety” in an effort to try to dispel fears about excessive safety measures, sometimes promoted by over-zealous officials and organisations. Specialist features on safety matters were provided for many publications including: The Journal for the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, NHS Guide to Healthy Living (NHS Trusts Association), Freight Transport Review, The Scotsman and Public Service Review.
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Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen, RoSPA President, opens the 72nd RoSPA National Road Safety Congress in Stratford-upon-Avon in February 2007. |
Events
The Society’s programme of events has continued to grow. Most notable were the series of seminars on the new child car seat and coach seatbelt laws, which RoSPA staged to help front-line public services to understand the complexity of the legislation and be confident in advising the public correctly.
RoSPA also organised a highly successful series of events to clarify revisions to the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations which came into force in spring 2007.
Annual congresses on Road, Home, Water, Play and Occupational Safety and Health again provided hundreds of safety professionals with an opportunity to gain new knowledge and meet experts in their field.
Membership
RoSPA members support the Society’s work in helping to prevent accidents, but also gain from a range of benefits. Many members have traditionally been individual sites of large corporations, but now the Society offers Corporate membership. This has led to many organisations upgrading to bring sister sites into their new corporate membership, or new businesses joining who may have previously been deterred by the individual site-based membership options. Although in numerical terms this may have led to a reduction in members, RoSPA’s influence has grown because the increase in the average size of member organisations means messages reach a wider audience.
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| Jenny McWhirter RoSPA's new Risk Education Adviser |
A new Fleet membership was launched in 2006 and 40 organisations have already joined. A new option of multiple-year membership is also proving popular with many businesses committing to two and three-year membership.
Education
RoSPA seeks to promote safety and risk education relevant to all levels in society, throughout compulsory education, in the workplace and among educators, safety professionals, the media and policymakers. The Society supports those who work with children and young people to help them to understand how to keep themselves and others safe, wherever they are. It provides teachers and other practitioners with resources, training and information on its website as well as through its journal Safety Education.
During the year, Jenny McWhirter was appointed as Risk Education Adviser. An internal working group has been formed to develop approaches to engaging young people about safety and risk education. The Department for Education and Science Safeguarding Team consulted the Society about a new strategy focusing on a range of elements including risk education.
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RoSPA is a registered charity: Registered Charity No: 207823 Patron: Her Majesty the Queen RoSPA Head Office: Edgbaston Park, 353 Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B5 7ST, UK |
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