Promising Practice
KIDS Network Safe Sleep Instructor Certification Project
State/Jurisdiction: Kansas
Setting: Clinical
Population: Medical & Public Health Professionals Infant
Topic Area: Access to Quality Healthcare Health Promotion & Communication Workforce Development
NPMs: NPM 5: Safe Sleep
The KIDS Network Safe Sleep Instructor (SSI) Certification Project was created to address the high rate of infant mortality. With sleep-related deaths being the third leading cause of infant death nationwide, the long-term goal is to reduce infant mortality by increasing infant safe sleep. The SSI Certification Project aims to educate instructors to their maximum potential, and to build collective impact to reduce sleep-related infant deaths. The overall objective of the project is to enhance safe sleep initiatives by building capacity to roll out safe sleep promotion programs developed for specific venues, including the community, hospitals and outpatient maternal and infant clinics. Our central hypothesis is that culturally targeted education, coupled with easy to implement strategies, can build on the communities’ current work to significantly increase the number of parents/caregivers using safe sleep practices. Our secondary aim is to increase the number of Safe Sleep Instructors. We propose that the SSI Certification Project will allow states to expand their reach, and specifically to build nation-wide infrastructure to promote consistent infant safe sleep messages. This in turn, will help to facilitate a safe sleep culture to reduce the number of sleep-related deaths across the nation.
The SSI Certification Project builds a cadre of regional trainers who are trained to educate their communities about the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Safe Sleep Recommendations. This train-the-trainer model provides the foundation for sustainability and expansion of safe sleep campaigns and creates the vehicle for delivery of the KIDS Network Community Baby Shower model. The KIDS Network has worked collaboratively with numerous organizations like Safe KIDS Kansas, Wichita Black Nurses Association, Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition, the Kansas Tobacco Use Prevention Program, Kansas Department of Health and Environment Bureau of Family Health, Chronic Disease Risk Reduction grantees and other organizations to embed cross-cutting efforts into the SSI Certification infrastructure.
Safe Sleep Instructors attend a 2-day training designed to build the skills necessary to begin to implement established, evidence-supported safe sleep programs in their local communities. Topics addressed include: AAP Safe Sleep Recommendations; physiologic reasons believed to be risk factors for SIDS; breastfeeding resources; issues related to bed sharing; tobacco cessation tools and resources, strategies to reduce the barriers to following the safe sleep guidelines; facilitation of KIDS Network Community Baby Showers for high risk mothers and their support persons and; facilitation of the KIDS Network Safe Sleep Star Outpatient Toolkit QI Project and the national Cribs for KIDS Hospital Certification Program. Parent and caregiver specific outcomes include: 1) knowledge and intention to provide a safe sleep environment, 2) intention to breastfeed with knowledge of local resources, and 3) intention and knowledge of tobacco cessation.
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Implementation Handout
CONTACT INFORMATION
Kansas Infant Death and SIDS (KIDS) Network, Inc.
Christy Schunn
edirector@kidsks.org
316-682-1301
Practice Website
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