Targeting early childhood educators and parents: Health education programs in a drug and road safety context

The implementation of school-based road safety education programs often involves the challenge of finding room in an already crowded curriculum. This paper highlights strategies undertaken in Western Australia to increase implementation of road safety education through creating links with existing drug education programs.

It provides a working example of how research findings have been formulated into strategic action through the development of road safety and drug education programs for young children, 4 to 8 years of age, in Western Australian schools.

The topics covered, include the development of road safety and drug education resources that provide interactive classroom, simulated and real world learning experiences; the focus on literacy strategies and domains of play to increase teacher implementation; the focus on the role of parents; and the provision of professional learning opportunities for early childhood teachers.

This paper also describes links to the Western Australian K-12 Curriculum Framework (a document describing learning outcomes for students) and how the strategic alliance of the Road Aware Program with the School Drug Education Project has resulted in stronger regional networks, greater dissemination capacity to teachers and schools, efficient use of resources, and improved promotion and advocacy.

Examples of practical strategies that can be used by road safety professionals to address the development and implementation of road safety programs in schools will be of interest to conference delegates.