Safe Community Trondheim

Country: Norway
Number of inhabitants: 154,351 (2004)
Programme started year: 2003
International Safe Communities Network Membership: Designation year: 2005
Info address on www.trondheim.kommune.no

For further information contact:
Mette H. Berntsen
bmh@trondheim.kommune.no

The programme covers the following safety promotion activities:

For the age group
Children 0-14 years:
The parents of children 0-6 years are regularly given information about home-, leisure- and traffic safety at the Public Health Centres. A kit with age related material, a safe for medicine, different safety tools for the homes and a safety checklist for home. The guidance covers the following topics at the age of:
0-6 months: Preventing fall accidents, security of toys, equipment, bathing, car-safety.
6-12 months: Preventing fall accidents, burning- and poisoning, transport security.
1-4 years: Indoors and outdoor safety, traffic safety and safety at sea.
4-6 years: Preventing home accidents and outdoor security (playground, traffic and leisure activities)

- Recommendation to parents of 8 month children to keep medical carbon to be used in case of poisoning
- First aid education is offered to kindergarten workers
- All playground equipment in primary schools and day care centres is inspected every year using detailed checklists.
- Dangerous or gloomy places at children’s way to school have been registered and meassures are taken or planned.
- A Children’s Spokesman takes care of children’s interest in local planning, i.e. areas for play and activities, traffic safety, noise and pollution.
- Safety routines and safety inspections have been implemented in schools and kindergartens.
- Traffic safety education in schools for children at 12-14 years of age.
- To reduce bullying and violence among children and young persons a cooperation agreement with MOT (anti-bullying campaign) has been established that will last until 2006.
- Natteravner (Norwegian version of Guardian Angels) patrol the streets every Friday night and some Saturday nights to help children and young persons who are out on these nights.
- Alcohol free youth dance events.
- Information in schools at parents meeting, from local policemen, school nursery, people from MOT about alcohol, drugs, and parental responsibility

Youth 15-24 years:
The group is mostly covered by the safety promotion activities in sports, traffic and violence prevention (see following chapters) and some of the activities mentioned for children 0-14 years.

- Activating the youth in many activities to keep them occupied
- Drug and alcohol policy for the community
- Meeting facilities for the young people such as skate hall, youth clubs i.e.

Adults 25-64 years:
A target group for information about children safety promotion activities at home, in sports, trafic and violence prevention (se preceeding and following chapters)

- A programme for young adults who would like to work actively with their own problems that prevent them from coping in a regular job is established at Stavne Gård.

Elderly 65+ years:
- Physical, social and cultural activities arranged by the elderly organizations
- General information about health-promoting and preventive measures for elderly.
- Offer house visits to all 75-year olds in one district to talk about preventive measures, including the prevention of falls.
- Raise awareness and improve knowledge that physiotherapists have about documented risk factors related to the elderly and falls and to provide updated knowledge about intervention focusing on the elderly.
- Elderly persons prone to falling are examined by health personnel with a subsequent home inspection.
- Prevention of falls among elderly through network activities to establish better interaction between the public authorities and NGOs.
- A model is also being developed for training groups to work on the prevention of falls, including training instructors for such groups.
- Patients are followed up after hospitalization to prevent new fall injuries.
- Fire protection coordinators undertake continual activities for quality assurance and training of fire protection for nursing homes and home nursing (sheltered accommodation-shared housing-sheltered housing-staff).
- Using the hip protection safe hip
- Warning alarm for elderly and physically disabled
- Registration of accidents and injuries at all nursing homes and in home care services

All ages (the inhabitants):
- Fire safety weeks – two weeks in September/October every year with varying fire-safety themes
- Fire-safe Christmas celebrations – arranged in November/December every year

At the following environments:

Home:
- Focus on children and elderly.

Traffic:
The zero vision of the Traffic Safety Plan for Trondheim - the roads and traffic systems shall be designed to prevent death or life-long injury due to trivial individual errors committed by people driving or walking in traffic.

- Adapt the speed limit to 30 or 40 km/h where there are conflicts between pedestrians, bicyclists and motor vehicles
- Adapt speed limits to 50 km/h where there is a danger of side-impact collisions (intersections)
- Adapt speed limits to 70 km/h when there is a danger of head-on collisions.
- Reduce the number of accident points in relation to the number of registered accident points in 1994 to 1997.
- Traffic safety considerations are emphasized in all local planning and cases related to building permits.
- Construct good foothpaths and cycleways
- Free sand are offered to be used to prevent accidents
- The Trondheim local authority, the Norwegian Council for Road Safety and the County Governor are cooperating on active road to school to prevent accidents. A campaign is being planned in February 2005.
- All children shall have a road to school that satisfies safety requirements.
- A miniature traffic system (www.trafikkgarden.no) is used since the autumn of 2000 to instruct Trondheim's primary school children in traffic safety, general instruction in traffic behaviour for children in day-care centres and primary school, and is also used for instruction in traffic behaviour for bicyclists.

- A new action plan for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration is being prepared for the next four years (2006-09). Traffic safety will be escalated in this period, including raising the frequency of spot checks on the roads.

Occupational:
Trondheim will host the Directorate of Labour Inspection and this may initiate cooperation projects with regard to surveillance and prevention of work related injuries.

The Contingency Plan deals with accidents or other difficult situations that are more than what is considered normal risks and burdens, and which demand immediate action.

All activities undertaken by the local authority (day-care centres, schools, institutions etc.) that are subjected to the Working Environment Act and health and social care legislation have introduced internal control to ensure that problems are discovered and dealt with before injuries or accidents occur. Managers are obliged to undertake systematic follow-up of the requirements stipulated by the provisions relating to health, safety and the environment that apply to their operations.

School:
The City Executive Board finds it intolerable that pupils should feel unsafe on their way to or from school and in 2004 pointed out that there must be zero tolerance of bullying and violence in schools in Trondheim, and that the necessary resources must be spent on this.

- All schools have agendas to prevent bullying and violence.
- Big brother/big sister schemes.
- Mediation solutions between pupils.
- Class management focusing directly on interaction between children and adults and using video film as a method to collect data.
- "We care" focuses on harassment issues in particular and the role of the adult when it comes to developing children's self-esteem and perceived recognition.
- Project to reduce bullying in primary school, based on the Olweus project.
- Pupil council activities focusing on pupil cooperation.
- Conflict board in primary/lower secondary school.
- Fifth and sixth graders undertake training of bicycling skills in various traffic situations at a traffic-model facility.
- Pupils in lower secondary school may be instructed on preventing fires in connection with their school inspections.
- Traffic instruction for young persons is an elective study in lower secondary schools in Trondheim (driving licence for mopeds).
- All pupils in primary schools receive swimming lessons and training.
- All pupils in schools shall have at least one hour of physical activity each school day. Six primary schools in Trondheim are developing models for this focus on physical.
- Seventh grades pupils may be trained in sea sense to prevent tragic drowning accidents.
- Registration of accidents and injuries at all schools. A plan for handling the registration of accidents are to be made.
- All schools have a service agreement for permanently installed equipment in gyms.
- Safety routines and safety inspections have been implemented in schools and kindergartens.

Sports:
The city plan for sports and outdoor life 2005-2012 with an action plan for 2005 – 2008 is planning document that combine plans and measures for the administrative areas of sports, outdoor life and green structures in one plan.

- All footballball and handball goals have been secured against tipping over.
- Sports clubs in Trondheim are allowed free use of gyms in schools and other indoor facilities.
- Programs and policies against drugs in collaboration with MOT
- Education in swimming

Leisure:
Safety promotion in sport-areas and children’s playgrounds.

Other:
An overriding ideal in all planning in Trondheim is the universal design approach. The idea of designing surroundings to suit everyone is that everybody, regardless of functional disabilities, such as vision impairment, hearing impairment or movement dysfunction, can fully participate in society along equal lines with others.

Pirbadet offers swimming lessons or swimming training to the following groups:
- Babies, where the aim is that a baby shall feel safe and manage to stay afloat
- Children from one to five.
- Adults who cannot swim
- Swimming lessons for children and young persons
- Swimming for schools in Trondheim.

Violence prevention:
Coordination of local crime-preventing measures (SLT in Norwegian) focuses on children who are 12 to 18 years of age. The focus is on particular places, groups or individuals, and measures are launched according to where problems may arise.

- An action plan for Trondheim's substance abuse policies is established.
- A child guard service and crime counselling service is established.

To reduce violence and vandalism downtown
- The police lowered the threshold for tolerance to tackle a substantial number of problems.
- More police in uniform present in the streets in the evening and night, and if necessary, offenders will be fined on the spot.
- It will also be installing many more waste baskets in the city centre. Volunteers also contribute a great deal to keeping the city centre clean.
- Staggered closing times at restaurants.
- Training doormen (doorman course) to be better at handling conflicts, better at refraining from discriminatory practices and keeping aggressive tendencies in check.
- Every year during weekends in November and December two or three taxi drivers keep guard to prevent violence among people in cab rank.

Suicide prevention:
A new plan for suicide prevention will be established.

- The school public health service at secondery schools and college offer help after someone at the school has committed suicide to prevent more suicide.

See programs aiming at "High risk-groups".

Programs aiming at ”High risk-groups”:
Due to a number of deaths of young people in the summer of 2001, an interdisciplinary and interagency group called "Together against substance abuse" was convened to review all aspects of rehabilitative counselling and substance abuse in Trondheim. Overdose deaths in Trondheim have dropped dramatically in 2004 after this programme was launched.

- Assist to women who have been physically and mentally abused or raped.
- Support, a medical examination, treatment and follow-up of raped women if needed.
- Offer advice to victims of violence
- Persons under 18 years of age may contact the child welfare emergency service at the police station for assistance.
- Offer help for men with violence and aggression problems.
- Anyone who has been subjected to violence or rape is entitled to free counselling by a lawyer, whether or not the incident has been reported to the police.
- Young persons who have problems, and young people and adults who are worried about individuals or youth milieus can contact guidance telephone for young people on substance abuse.
- Refugee guide for young persons guide recently arrived young refugees in their first encounters with Norwegian society through their own network.
- Youth contracts are used to motivate and assist the young offender to stay away from crime and establish a regular life within the framework of the law.
- Young persons whose caregivers are mentally ill are offered group therapy.
- Health clinics for children and young persons up to 20 years of age are also working on substance abuse among young persons with a view to getting them to reject the idea of starting to smoke, and also to postpone their initial contact with alcohol.
- To give pregnant substance abuse users assistance during their pregnancy, a health clinic is established.
- To create a meaningful existence for adults with substance-abuse problems who are more or less permanently excluded from participating in regular organized recreation programmes, a new program is established (Gryta).
- A detoxification clinic for male substance abusers who are currently being held in prison cells is planned.
- Men and women above the age of 18 who have been subjected to incest are provided help to themselves, and to their families.
- As part of rehabilitation of pedofile who are about to be released from prison chemical castration is offered.

Surveillance of injuries:
A deviation-handling system has been developed where accidents and injuries are continuously reported electronically (such as accidents involving falls in nursing homes), and where the department or division manager must propose initiatives to preclude further unfortunate events. The Chief Medical Officer uses weekly overviews to monitor development trends, and to check whether there is a preponderance of accidents or situations in some locations.

Trondheim has one address for emergencies organized by the local authorities. The emergency medical service operates a 24-hour service at St. Olavs University Hospital and also a house-call service. The emergency service will operate a new system for registration of injuries in collaboration with St. Olavs Hospital. A pilot of the system will be in place from April 2005 and a journal-based system will come a little later. The new system will replace a previous injury register that was established in 1985 and operated through 2004 at the university hospital.

Numbers per year: 18,000
Population base: 154,351
Started year: 1985

Publications:

Download the application report:

Trondheim, Norway- Application to Become a Member of the Safe Community Network

Fjerdingen, L. and Langeland, P.A. (2001). Eberg trafikkgård. Evaluering av bruk av trafikkgården i trafikkopplæring - hvilke effekter gir den? Statusdel. (Eberg traffic-model facility. Evaluation and use of the traffic-model facility for traffic-safety training – what effect does it have? Status section) SINTEF report STF22 A01305

Lereim, I. and Sahlin, Y. (1984) "[Child accidents. A study of the pattern of accidents and injuries in children treated at the Trondheim County Hospital]", Tidsskr.Nor Laegeforen., 104, 2155-2158.

Sahlin, Y., Stene, T.M., Lereim, I., and Balstad, P. (1990) "Occurrence of injuries in a defined population", Injury, 21, 155-157.

Stene, T. M. & Lervåg, L.-E. (2003). Tiltak mot sykkelulykker i Trondheim på bakgrunn av registreringer ved St. Olavs University Hospital (Measures against bicycling accidents in Trondheim based on registrations at St. Olavs University Hospital). SINTEF memo N-10/03

Stene, T. M. & Lereim, I. (1989). Anvendelse av sykehusdata til forskning innen trafikksikkerhet (Using hospital data for research on traffic safety). SINTEF report STF63 A89013

Stene, T. M. (1996). Sykehusrapporterte syklist- og fotgjengerulykker (Accidents involving bicyclists and pedestrians reported to the hospital). SINTEF report STF22 A96608

Øvstedal, L.R., Ryeng, E.O. & Stene, T.M. (2004). PROMPT New means to Promote Pedestrian Traffic in cities. WP2: Safety and Accessibility - Norway. PROMPT National reports Norway - Part 1. SINTEF report STF22 04313, SINTEF Technology and Society, Trondheim, Norway. (To be published)

Ulykker i Trondheim 1992 (Accidents in Trondheim – 1992), TM 93/19, ISBN 82-7727-013-5, the Environmental Department of the City of Trondheim, 1993.

 

Produced information material, pamphlets:
Safety for children. In 1996 the local authority published a brochure to draw attention to safety in the home, day-care centres, schools and playgrounds.

Sikkerhet for barn, Informasjonsbrosjyre (Safety for Children, Information Brochure to draw attention to safety at home), the City of Trondheim, 2000.

Checklist for Child Safety at home.

Staff
Number: 8
Professions: 6 part-time and 2 full-time:
Permanent: Yes
Organization: Trondheim, Health and Social Affairs
Specific intersectoral leadership group: Yes. The Chief Executive Board.
General public health/health promotion group: Yes
Helge Garåsen, Chief Medical Officer; Mette Berntsen, Public Health Planner; Guttorm Eilertsen, Medical adviser; Eyvind Senneset, Medical Adviser; Jon Jenssen, Adviser; Andreas Glimstad, Culture and Environment; Bodil Øwre Johnsen, Kindergarten; Bjørg Jakobsen, Schools.

International commitments:
Study visits: None
Participation in Safe Community conferences: Vågå (2003, Norway) and Prague (2004)
Hosting Safe Community Conferences: 1 st Safe Community Conference on Injury Surveillance, Trondheim 14 - 16 September 2005

Hosting ”Travelling Seminars”: None