What is SafeTea?
SafeTea is an online multimedia intervention to help parents to prevent hot drink burns in small children and improve burn first aid. SafeTea was launched in October 2019 and was promoted for three months. Half a million people haven viewed and used by SafeTea website and its resources. The success of the three month campaign are described in the executive summary on our resources page
The resources remain available to anyone working in the field
The key messages of the campaign are:
- Keep hot drinks away from young children
- Don’t pass a hot drink over a child
- Never hold a baby and a hot drink at the same time
- Make a SafeTea zone: a safe place for hot drinks in your home, out of reach of small children
- COOL, CALL, COVER
Why do we need SafeTea?
Hot drinks are the leading cause of children’s burns.
Thirty babies and toddlers go to hospital with a hot drink burn in the UK every day1, and only 1 in 4 of these children have received the correct first aid when they arrive at the Emergency Department2. These injuries can be devastating for children and their families.
Hot drink burns almost always occur at home, and most involve infants and toddlers as they are starting to become mobile and explore the world for themselves. Pulling a hot cup of tea or coffee from a surface within reach is the most common way that these children are burned. Usually this happens in a split second and takes parents completely by surprise. The figure below shows that the peak of paediatric burn Emergency Department attendances is in one-year-olds, when 70% of burns are caused by hot drinks or hot water (blue shading).
Who created SafeTea?
SafeTea has been designed by the Children’s Burns Research Centre, part of the UK Burns Research Network funded by the Scar Free Foundation https://scarfree.org.uk/research/burns
How is SafeTea being measured?
Using web analytics and short online surveys we have measured the success of the SafeTea campaign in terms of geographic reach and reactions to social posts, uptake of free download materials and use of the SafeTea website throughout the duration of the campaign. The summary is available on the SafeTea resources page
Who funds SafeTea?
SafeTea has received funding from the Scar Free Foundation, Health and Care Research Wales, VTCT Foundation, Worshipful Company of Tinplate Workers, British Burn Association and Cardiff University City Region Exchange.
Who are the SafeTea team?
The need for SafeTea was identified by the prevention team within the Children’s Burns Research Centre.
Professor Alison Kemp, Alan Emond and research staff at Cardiff University led the design and development of the SafeTea campaign.
Research team at Cardiff University and University of Bristol led the evaluation of SafeTea using web and social media technology.
Professor Alan Emond, former Director of the Children’s Burns Research Centre, chairs the SafeTea steering group.
The SafeTea steering group provide the national expertise that informs the development and delivery of SafeTea. Steering group members include:
- CAPT: Child Accidental Prevention Trust
- RoSPA: Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents
- BBA: British Burn Association
- iHV: Institute of Health Visiting
- CBT: Children’s Burns Trust
- UWE: University of West of England
- NCPHWR: National Centre for Population Health and Wellbeing Research
- SFF: Scar Free Foundation
Marketing support from Kate Rivera at RawMarketing
Campaign artwork by Adam Jones at AJ Graphic Design
Logos and branding by Jack Godfrey