The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) is expanding its blind cord safety campaign to three areas in Scotland, with a major launch taking place in Fife.
The project will see the council distribute 4000 Make It Safe leaflets and cleats, around which blind cords can be tied, and offer a fitting service to install the cleats through its award-winning Safer Homes initiative.
RoSPA and Fife Council is launching the project today in the boardroom of Kingdom House, Glenrothes.
Since 1999, RoSPA is aware of the deaths of 15 children who were caught in blind cords, five of which happened last year, and there are likely to have been many more near misses.
The expansion of the blind cord campaign builds on a pilot project undertaken in North Lanarkshire last year. Further funding from the Scottish Government has made the roll-out possible, and all three projects will run for six months from April to September.
The councils involved, which also include Borders and South Lanarkshire, will raise awareness of the issues surrounding looped blind cords by distributing the Make It Safe leaflets at local events.
Community safety minister Fergus Ewing said, “Since I launched the first blind cords campaign led by RoSPA in Scotland last year, awareness of the dangers of blind cords to young children has been increasing.
“I am delighted to see that the good work achieved so far in North Lanarkshire is being built upon with the campaign being rolled into Borders, Fife and South Lanarkshire…
“It is vital people follow up what they learn with action to reduce the risks of blind cords in the home, to protect their loved ones from a preventable tragedy.”
Bob Arnott, chairman of the Safer Homes Task Group, said, “It is important for us all to feel safe, but we may not be aware of all the dangers within our homes, such as the dangers posed by looped blind cords, or the small things we can do to help prevent accidents.”
Angus McLaughlin, father of two-year-old Muireann McLaughlin, who died in 2008 as a result of a blind cord accident at their Clackmannanshire home, said he supported the project’s expansion.
“I would hate for other families to go through what we did,” he said.
“We grieve every time another child dies as a result of this ‘hidden’ danger which exists in millions of homes across the UK.
“Both my wife Katie and I see the fitting of these cleats as an important interim measure until it’s possible to completely remove corded blinds from homes by making cordless products more affordable and more widely available.”
Since receiving Make it Safe information, 60% of parents/carers who participated in the original pilot project said they were now unlikely to buy any blinds with looped cords.
Elizabeth Lumsden, RoSPA Scotland’s community safety manager, said, “In North Lanarkshire, it was really encouraging to see that people were talking about the information they received through the project, and were helping to spread the word about the dangers of looped blind cords.”
Full details can be found at www.rospa.com/about/current|campaigns/blindcords.
The Make it Safe leaflet is available at www.rospa.com/homesafety/ info/blind-cord-safety.pdf. The leaflet was produced by the British Blind and Shutter Association, with which RoSPA is working on a wider blind cord safety campaign.