Unintentional child injury is a significant public health concern and leading cause of death among children. Though the majority of unintentional injuries are preventable, few interventions target child injury hazards. Since many unintentional injuries occur in the home, home visiting may be an effective method for modifying unsafe home environments. In this paper, we examined whether a behavioral parenting program conducted in the home would reduce home safety hazards among families who were in the child welfare system or at risk for child maltreatment. Paired t-tests were used to analyze the change in number of safety hazards, as measured by the Home Accident Prevention Inventory-Revised, across four types of rooms. Significant reductions in home hazards were demonstrated across room type after program participation. Results suggest that families at risk for child maltreatment can have significant reductions in home safety hazards following program participation.

There is a strong movement toward implementation of evidence-based practices (EBP) in child welfare systems. The SafeCare parenting model is one of few parent-training models that addresses child neglect, the most common form of maltreatment. Here, the authors describe initial findings from a statewide effort to implement the EBP, SafeCare®, into a state child welfare system. A total of 50 agencies participated in training, with 295 individuals entering training to implement SafeCare. Analyses were conducted to describe the trainee sample, describe initial training and implementation indicators, and to examine correlates of initial training performance and implementation indicators. The quality of SafeCare uptake during training and implementation was high with trainees performing very well on training quizzes and role-plays, and demonstrating high fidelity when implementing SafeCare in the field (performing over 90% of expected behaviors). However, the quantity of implementation was generally low, with relatively few providers (only about 25%) implementing the model following workshop training. There were no significant predictors of training or implementation performance, once corrections for multiple comparisons were applied. The Discussion focuses on challenges to large-scale system-wide implementation of EBP.