About Safe School

What's Safe School ?

Welcome to the International Safe Schools Designation Program. The key to International Safe Schools is in understanding how the program started and where its roots are planted. This is within the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Safe Community Movement. World Health Organization (WHO) Safe Communities is about cross-sectoral, community based, long-term, sustainable, injury prevention that is based upon data and surveillance. The Safe Community initiative differs in comparison to other injury prevention programs. In the former, the leading role is played by the community itself. The term Safe Community implies that the community aspires to safety in a structured approach, not that the community is already perfectly safe. Creative methods of education and environmental change joined with appropriate legislation and enforcement are an important beginning for the safety of a community. No single approach is sufficient for changing existing behavior patterns. The media, for example, can be a very powerful tool in heightening public awareness.

Programs to prevent and control injuries and accidents must identify and characterize the injury problem and evaluate the effectiveness of injury control interventions. Though epidemiology is not the soul of the safe communities concept, the vital importance of it must be respected.

Key factors in implementing a successful Safe Community Injury Prevention Program：
  • Listen to the community - let them define what they believe are the most important problems
  • Co-ordinate efforts at a regional level
  • Raise public awareness to the importance of injury prevention
  • Include injury prevention in national programs
  • Ensure that powerful interest groups support the community efforts
  • Mobilize all members of a community creatively

International Safe School

The International Safe Schools Program began in Anchorage, Alaska at the 10th International Safe Communities Conference through a breakout session of 35 experts in Safe Community and School Injury Prevention talking about the need for a program for the community of schools.　International Safe Schools Committee – a project in collaboration with the WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion.

Safe Schools Criteria:

  1. An infrastructure based on partnership and collaborations, governed by a group of teachers, pupils, technical staff and parents that is responsible for safety promotion in their school; the group should be chaired by a School Board (representative of school policy governance body) representative, with the Headmaster as a co-chair (hereinafter the Safe School Committee).
  2. Safe School policies decided by the Safe School Committee and Community Council in a Safe Community setting.
  3. Long-term, sustainable, operational school programs covering both genders and all ages, environments, and situations.
  4. Programs that target high-risk groups and environments, and programs that promote safety for vulnerable groups.
  5. Programs that document the frequency and causes of injuries – both un-intentional (accidents) and intentional (violence and self-directed).
  6. Evaluation measures to assess school policies, programs, processes and the effects of change.
  7. Ongoing participation in Safe Schools networks – at community, national and international levels.

The Objective of Tamkang

Overall Objectives:

  • Collaborate between the internal and external units and organizations to preserve the school safety belief and vision.
  • Promote strategies with organization and systemization to effectively enhance the overall safety awareness among teachers and students. Educate students to establish safety concepts in school and community lives in order to improve the quality of life and environment.
  • Investigate and monitor accident prone areas and locations. Publicize the relevant information to students and emphasize the improvement on those areas in order to reduce accidents and provide a more comfortable and safe learning space for the teachers and students.
  • Provide safety knowledge to students by offering health and safety courses so that the students will possess the awareness and skills for reducing and eliminating dangers. Through the courses, some students may even be equipped with skills for handling accidental incidents.

Secondary Objectives:

  • Over 50% of teachers and students understand the determination and objective of creating a health & safety school by the Tamkang University.
  • Under the consistent improvement on the single safety issue (traffic environment surrounding the campus), the percentage of traffic accident injuries reduces by at least 5%.
  • Create a "3-Low" health & safety school of low hazards, low accident injuries, and low wastes.
  • Establish a mechanism or organization for collaboratively promoting the health and safety with the community.