Our Work

 

History of Progress

KID’s mission is to save lives by enhancing transparency and accountability through safer product development, better education and stronger advocacy for children. Over the last 25 years, KID has fought to change the landscape of children’s product safety through advocacy, outreach, and the reformation of product design. On a national level, just 10 years after KID began their efforts a 2008 bill was passed which included various provisions to improve child product safety. The new law established the most significant safety improvements of the CPSC since the 1970’s. A key portion of this legislation is named in Danny’s honor. View a timeline of KID’s milestones over the past 25 years.

Advocating for Children

Recently, KID traveled to DC to present our priorities to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission; here we advocated against the legal sales of bumper pads when many health and safety groups warn of their link to suffocation, strangulation, and other infant deaths. Progress was made when Ohio joined Maryland, Chicago IL, and Watchung, NJ in banning the sale of bumper pads.

KID has also had the opportunity to take our advocacy to an international level for the ICPHSO International Conference in Brussels, the EU’s International Product Safety Week conference, the Tri-Lateral Product Safety Summit in Beijing, China, and the OECD Working Party on Consumer Product Safety in Paris. KID spoke on recall effectiveness, social media, and internet sale safety. Learn more about our advocacy here.

Promoting the Development of Safer Products

KID promotes the development of safer product through our TEST program. KID’s Teach Early Safety Testing program is aimed at integrating design safety into the curriculum for early engineers at the University level. KID works with programs to address current product hazards in order to make space to design solutions beginning with safety.

In the 2017 fiscal year, KID worked with 15 teams, consisting of 60 students, creating 15 projects from Harvey Mudd College, Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. Since TEST’s inauguration in 2003, KID has worked with over 100 teams and over 400 students to create over 100 safe children’s product prototypes. This past fall, KID launched our first TEST high school program at Leyden High School, where the program was well-received by students. Learn more here.

In 2016, KID released our groundbreaking research report on furniture tip-over in collaboration with Shane’s Foundation. Using injury data, KID worked with UL technicians to test 19 dressers and chests for adherence to the current ASTM voluntary standard. To read more about the report and our conclusions, click here.

Outreach and Education

A key part improving children’s safety focuses on educating parents and caregivers about potentially hazardous products. We educate caregivers through KID’s signature workshops: Creating Safe Environments for Children and Is This Safe? A step-by-step guide to assessing infant sleep products. Education also occurs through outreach material such as our Children’s Product Safety Guide. In 2017, KID distributed 1,685 Children’s Product Safety guides to caregivers; 77% of recipients claimed that they learned a lot from the guide and 89% were likely to take action based off of what they had learned from the guide. Learn more about our outreach and education programs here.

Jobs with KID

Are you interested in joining the fight for children’s product safety? KID is currently hiring a Program Associate to work on our outreach and education. The Program Associate will build KID’s capacity in engaging the public in our work. This includes web-based communications (social media, blogs, website, email alerts), grassroots fundraising, advocacy and outreach to parents and caregivers. Click here to view the full job description and application instructions. We’re looking to hire as soon as possible so apply today!