CRIBS FOR KIDS
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Mission Statement
Since 1998, through safe sleep education and the donation of thousands of portable cribs, Cribs for Kids® has been making an impact on the rate of babies dying from sleep-related death due to accidental suffocation, asphyxia, strangulation, and SIDS. This is accomplished by educating parents on the importance of practicing safe sleep and by providing cribs to families who cannot, otherwise, afford a safe place for their babies to sleep. Cribs for Kids® currently has more than 680 Partner Programs throughout the country model this infant safe sleep initiative.
About This Cause
Detailed Description: In 1994 when the federal Back to Sleep Campaign was launched to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), pediatricians began educating parents to place their babies on their backs to sleep. Nationally, SIDS rates dropped by 50 percent. Unfortunately, even with this decrease in deaths, SIDS/SUID remained the number one cause of infant mortality in the country after the first month of age. Researchers and advocates were left to wonder how to eliminate these remaining deaths. Through research done by Sudden Infant Death Services of Pennsylvania, Inc., in collaboration with the Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA) Child Death Review Team and the Allegheny County Coroner’s office, it was determined that 90 percent of the sudden unexplained infant deaths in Allegheny County were from the lower-income areas and were predominantly African-American infants. Through the review of the death scenes, they learned that these babies were not dying in cribs, but in unsafe-sleep environments, such as couches, chairs, or in adult beds while bedsharing. Sudden Infant Death Services of PA's mission became clear: provide cribs to babies whose mothers could not afford them and educate mothers about the dangers of unsafe-sleep environments including bed sharing. Judith Bannon, Executive Director of Sudden Infant Death Service of PA, enlisted the help of the Allegheny County District Attorney, Pittsburgh Police, members of the Allegheny County Child Death Review Team, the and Pittsburgh City Council to create an infant safe sleep program, Cribs for Kids®, to fulfill this mission. Meanwhile, health departments, Safe Sleep organizations, police departments, hospitals, EMT services and other concerned parties throughout Pennsylvania were discovering what Cribs for Kids® had found -- that the majority of infants dying in their communities were in unsafe-sleep environments. In 2003, the Allegheny County Child Death Review Board recognized Cribs for Kids'® efforts and credited them publicly with cutting infant sleep-related death rates in Allegheny County by more than 50 percent. This news spread throughout Pennsylvania, and other organizations attempted to develop their own safe-sleep programs. Recognizing the need for a collaboration that would pull financial and human resources together to better compete for funding and corporate sponsorships, in 2004 Bannon invited those organizations to meet and discuss the establishment of a collaboration of Cribs for Kids® partners. Within a few months Cribs for Kids® had expanded from an Allegheny County initiative to a collaboration of four Cribs for Kids® partners: SIDS of PA, Inc. (Pittsburgh); Maternity Care Coalition (Philadelphia); Westmoreland Human Opportunities, Inc. (Western PA); and, Blair County Respiratory Society (Central PA). Through this state-wide collaboration, a Trademark License Agreement, safe sleep brochures, and materials were developed and a Cribs for Kids® Resource Center was established. Since then, the initiative has expanded to include more than 450 organizations throughout the United States that have signed the Cribs for Kids® Trademark License Agreement and are implementing the Cribs for Kids® Infant Safe Sleep Program in their communities. Structure: Through the efforts of Cribs for Kids® National Infant Safe Sleep Initiative, partners are brought together who view success for one, as success for all. Cribs for Kids® partners do not exist in a hierarchical structure but as collaborators whose ideas and materials are shared by all of the partners. By signing the Cribs for Kids® Trademark License Agreement, partners agree to adhere to certain standards and guidelines. This license agreement gives them the right to use the standardized forms, Cribs for Kids® name and logo, and order their safe-sleep materials at discounted prices. If they choose to develop their own materials, the Cribs for Kids® Advisory Board must approve them. At all times the partners are encouraged to share materials that they have developed with the Cribs for Kids® Resource Center to help enhance the program. The Cribs for Kids® National Infant Safe Sleep Initiative, Headquartered in Pittsburgh, provides free Cribs for Kids® Toolkits to organizations interested in the collaboration. The toolkit includes standardized materials including safe sleep educational brochures in English and Spanish, hold harmless agreements, parental guidelines, and pre and post tests for evaluation purposes. Grant writing materials, including a bibliography and logic model, are also included in the tool kit to help partners with their fundraising efforts. DVDs of Public Service Announcements and Powerpoint presentations with up-to-date statistics to help partners spread the safe-sleep message of Cribs for Kids® in their communities are also available. All of these materials save new partners from ‘reinventing the wheel’ and assure that a consistent safe-sleep message is being spread throughout the country. All partners can access contact information for each other and interact via partner-only forums on www.cribsforkids.org. Perhaps most importantly, the Cribs for Kids® Resource Center is home to a distribution center where all materials needed to provide a safe-sleep environment including the Graco Pack 'n Plays, portable crib sheets imprinted with a safe sleep message, Halo SleepSacks and Philips Soothie pacifiers are available to the partners at discounted prices through a power-buying structure. Pitt-Ohio Express, a Pittsburgh based trucking company, generously provides free shipping to the partners in their service area. Their good will is key to the success of this collaboration. Through power-buying and the benefit of free shipping, Cribs for Kids® partners are able to provide more safe-sleep environments and education to low-income families throughout the country.