Home Safety Tips & Ideas

Home Safety by RoSPA
This is the site of the UK's Royal Society for the prevention of Accidents 9RoSPA), whose mission is to save lives and reduce injuries through accident prevention. The site offers many tips to prevent injury, prevent falls, stroke prevention, home accessibility, home safety, and more are included. Tips for being safe at home, room by room, are also included. Shower equipment can be adapted to improve both safety and independence. Use hand-held showerheads, long handled sponges, simple tub benches and skid-proof rubber mats. Shower curtains are safer than shower doors. Toilets can be installed with a wide variety of enhancements to improve safety such as simple grab bars or specially designed commode chairs. Pipes that are exposed should be insulated to prevent burns and scrapes. This is important if you have toddlers who can squeeze into small places. Faucets can be converted to single lever handles and sensor eyes can be used so you don't have to use your hands. Skip-proof rugs and rubber mats are encouraged to prevent falls in the bathroom. In the kitchen, cabinets often have shelves that are too high to reach safely. Store frequently used items on the lowest shelf, at waist level, or on the counter. Avoid using step stools and never stand on a chair to reach high items. More tips are included for rooms of the house.

Dog Trainer Says Guard Dogs Can Be Friendly
According to this post by Pam Young, a personal dog trainer and dog behavior consultant, a good guard dog is sociable and friendly, unless it feels that something can be threatening. In most cases, the dog waits a command from his owner before it makes a move. But once a dog seems to be always afraid or reacts violently on everything, Pam believes that such dogs have very low potential of being a good guard dog. She also suggests that training a dog to be a guard dog needs someone who has enough experience in this kind of task. On the last part, she enumerated some great characteristics of a potentially good guard dog.

Napo's Hazard Hunter
This is a teacher's aid toolkit that engages children in a series of fun activities to help them identify and understand safety and health risks at both school and home. The main educational tools is a 3D animated video, in which charming character named Napo encouters various situations to help children think, understand and act on safety issues. The video is aided with helpsheets and hazard-spotting posters and stickers children can place on the posters when they find a hazard. There are two lessons. Lesson 1 is about identifying risks and hazards at school and at home. It intends to teach children to evaluate different levels of risk. Lesson 2 is about itnervention and prevention. The film looks at the most common workplace risks and hazards and children are asked to Stop, Think and Act to reduce the number of accidents and occupational ill health. Through this teaching aid, children come to understand their own responsibility concerning risks and hazards.

Join in the Discussion About Barcodes and Security Gates
Do you have an opinion about barcodes being used to identify residents of a gated community so that they can get in through the security gate? Share your thoughts on this discussion board and read what others have to say about this topic.

Home Fire Safety from the Red Cross
According to this fire safety page by the Red Cross, if a fire starts in your home, you may have as little as two minutes to escape. The best way to save lives, according to the web page, is to get an early warning from a working smoke alarm and to have an escape route that has been practiced regularly. The site offers a must-read short list of basic fire safety tips. This includes monthly testing of smoke alarms and making sure your young kids know how it sounds like. You should also create fire-escape plan that has two exit points, and should be practiced by all family members. These exits should also always be free from clutter. A monitored smoke and carbon monoxide detection system is also highly recommended. The site provided fire safety checklists and fact sheets that can be downloaded.