Aims & Network

The European Child Safety Alliance is established to protect children throughout Europe from serious injury. This includes advancing child injury prevention by helping all Europeans to be informed parents and carers as well as advocating for consistency of standards, policies, and legislation throughout Europe.

Today, more than 30 countries across Europe are working together through the Alliance with a view to reducing injuries which still are the leading cause of death, disability and inequity to children in every Member State in the region.

You can see a map of our member organisations at the bottom of this page.

Our Network

The European Child Safety Alliance, launched in 2000, is the catalyst organisation for European wide action to promote safety for children and adolescents. Experts from across Europe come from diverse fields and settings, including medicine, public health, psychology, education, engineering and government, to share and advocate for what works in child injury prevention to benefit children and their families.

Why take action?

At present, injury is the leading cause of death and disability for children and adolescents in every Member State in Europe. And for every child or adolescent that dies, hundreds more are hospitalised and several thousand are presented to an emergency and accident department. Many injured young people suffer permanent disabilities and post-trauma disorders that create an enormous burden in social and economic terms, both on families and society.

The leading causes of death to European children occur as a result of unintentional injuries, i.e. accidents – mainly due to transportation accidents, drowning, burns and scalds, electrical injuries, suffocation and choking. 

All children are at risk of injury and the main factors which put them at risk are: stage of development, quality of physical and social environment, availability of policies and legislation to protect children and adolescents, and minority status.

Why is European collaboration needed?

There are a number of national programmes dedicated to child and adolescent injury prevention that are making steady progress to enhance safety. There is much to be learned from these programmes and actions and additional impact can be achieved throughout Europe by enhancing the consistency of standards, policies, and legislation as well as assisting national and local actors in raising awareness and communicating evidence-based advice to parents and caregivers.

Europe is becoming more of a global community, and this has an effect on injury hazards and efforts to reduce them at the European level. Even though the burden of injuries is influenced by various social, economic, political and cultural factors and has a different profile in each Member State, united efforts around a common goal to reduce injury throughout Europe will have enhanced impact for all in the European Region.  

The European Child Safety Alliance is initiated by EuroSafe and hosted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in Birmingham, England since January 2011. Prior to that, it was hosted by the Consumer Safety Institute in the Netherlands.