Blog

Short, practical reads on keeping children safe at home. Every post links its sources.

Critical controls: the six checks that prevent deaths at home

Mines keep people alive by naming the few controls that stop a fatal event and checking them on a schedule. Here are six for a family home, with how to check each one.

The Haddon matrix and drowning: twelve places to stop it

Injury scientists use one grid to find every point where an injury can be prevented. Here it is applied to toddlers and water at home, cell by cell.

The hierarchy of controls at home: why "keep an eye on them" comes last

Every Australian workplace must rank its safety controls from strongest to weakest. Supervision sits near the bottom. Here is the same ladder for a family home.

 A parent's hand reaches for a button battery on a kitchen bench before a toddler can grab it, beside a remote and a car key

Button batteries: go to emergency, don't wait

A swallowed button battery can burn through a child's food pipe within hours. What to look for, what to do, and where they hide at home.

 A parent moves a mug of tea back from the bench edge while a toddler watches from the kitchen

Hot drinks scald toddlers: five habits and the 20-minute rule

Scalds cause 52% of child burns, and the cup of tea in your hand can be enough. Five habits that stop it, and the 20-minute first aid rule.

 A parent puts medicines into a high, child-locked cupboard while a toddler plays with blocks below

Medicines and laundry pods: up, locked, and 13 11 26

Where to keep medicines and pods, what "child-resistant" really means, and what to do in the first minutes.