Community Engagement Kits

A great way to reduce road-related injuries and fatalities is to pair school-based programs and campaigns with community involvement. What that looks like depends on your school community—it could be anything from a single-day event to multiple days spread out over the school year to a whole week devoted to road safety. It’s up to you!

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Plan a Road Safety Event

One way to promote road safety awareness is through a road safety event hosted by schools and organized by community partners such as parent teacher councils, school staff and/or students.

When it comes to the timing and length of your event, you can get creative. For example, you could time the event to line up with the United Nations Global Road Safety Week or Canada Road Safety Week, or you could plan the event the week before students go off on March break. Typically, a good time to organize a road safety event is at the beginning of the school year, or at the start of spring when it’s relatively warm and students are starting to be outdoors more and therefore near roads.

Think about whether your school would be better suited to a one-day event centred around a theme (such as distracted driving) or whether you’d like a week-long event. For this you could adopt the whole-school approach: different departments could take ownership for specific days and the entire school could participate on day five.

Whichever route you take, the kits below will provide you with the ideas, tools and resources to support your classroom, school or community event that teaches and encourages safe road use. Feel free to use and adapt these guides to fit your needs. We’ve made it easy to pick and choose topics that will support your local event.

Road Safety For Primary Schools

Road Safety for Secondary Schools

Community Linkages

Below are some examples of how to involve community members in a road safety event.

  • Ask businesses, public swimming pools and libraries to post road safety messages (include examples) on their outdoor signs so that students receive road safety messages both inside and outside of the school.
  • Engage the OPP or community policing. They have access to information about crashes and collisions, regulations and preventive behaviours.
  • Reach out to Public Health Units. They have mandates related to personal injury prevention with a special focus on children and youth. A road safety event is an ideal opportunity for Public Health staff to assist in coordinating school-wide events, presentations and lessons.
  • The CAN-BIKE safe cycling skills program is the standard for bicycle education across Canada. This group could enhance a physical education lesson or provide a quick learning opportunity during your road safety event.

Helpful Tools and Resources

So, whom should you involve? Think beyond the classroom—maybe you want to involve your students’ families, police officers, public health nurses, government officials and/or non-profit organizations or local businesses in your community.

Use the following links to explore tools that can support you as you plan your event(s). Some of the links include examples to get you started on brainstorming for your event, while others include helpful checklists and tips.

 

No matter what kind of event you choose, you may want to invite organizations to set up display tables with information on road safety, risky behaviour and preventative measures. Go to Sample Letter to Invite Organizations for an example of how to start that conversation. Consider reaching out to individuals from this list of Guest Speakers and Programs who may be able to participate in your event.