October 2025
Spotlight: Charlie’s House Virtual Safety Experience
“Every home should be a safe place for children to grow, explore, and thrive.” To support families and caregivers, Charlie’s House, a nonprofit based in Kansas City, Missouri, has created a Virtual Safety Experience app that identifies household hazards and offers safety and prevention tips. The interactive app goes room by room, showing parents, caregivers, and educators what they can do to create a safer home environment for babies, toddlers, and children.
Click here to download the app (Apple/Android) or use it online.
Request for Proposals: Innovative and Upstream Approaches for Injury And Violence Prevention
The field of Injury and Violence Prevention (IVP) continues to evolve with new technologies, values, and ideas. Strategies such as blending and braiding funds for shared risk and protective factor approaches and partnering across sectors allows for a much more comprehensive approach and enhance IVP outcomes. Safe States Alliance is pleased to support up to four (4) seed grant awards to advance innovative approaches such as these and others in alignment with upstream prevention strategies. Eligible applicants include state, local, and territorial health, tribes and tribal organizations, hospitals/health care organizations, academic institutions, city and municipal governments, community-based organizations, businesses, and not-for-profit organizations.
Click here for more information. Deadline to respond: October 15, 2025, 5:00 pm EST
Teen Driver Safety Week Resources
Teen Driver Safety Week is observed from October 19 to 25. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is releasing new resources in English and Spanish to help organizations promote safe driving for teens and their parents. Resources include social graphics, messages, banner ads, and videos. Access and download these outreach materials at Teen Driver Safety | Traffic Safety Marketing starting October 19.
As a part of the 2025 Teen Driver Safety Week campaign, Kennedy Bingham, who survived a devastating crash where she was ejected from her vehicle and hung from a power line, will share her powerful story with her message to teens: stay distraction-free, buckle up, and drive the speed limit to protect yourself and others. Please follow and subscribe to NHTSA on YouTube and share her story with your network once it launches during Teen Driver Safety Week.
When posting to X and Instagram, please add #TeenDriver to your posts using the materials provided to help join and amplify the conversation.
ICYMI: Communications Breakdown Podcast
The Center for Injury Research Translation and Communication (CIRTC) is excited to announce the launch of a new podcast, Communications Breakdown. Hosted by Tracy Mehan and Katrina Boylan, the podcast breaks down what works (and doesn’t) in health communication, research translation, public health campaign strategy, social media, graphic design, and much more.
Communications Breakdown is available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and Buzzsprout.
Social Media Calendar
Oct 6–12: Fire Prevention Week
Oct 13–19: SIDS & Safe Sleep Awareness Month
Oct 20–26: Teen Driver Safety Week
Oct 27–Nov 2: Halloween/Pedestrian Safety
Upcoming Events
Event: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month
Date: October 1-31, 2025
October is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month. In October and beyond, infant caregivers and service and health care providers can join Safe to Sleep® and its partners to encourage safe infant sleep and help raise awareness about ways to reduce the risk of SIDS. Learn more here.
Event: National Substance Abuse Prevention Month
Date: October 1-31, 2025
October was first declared as National Substance Abuse Prevention Month in 2011. Since then, October has been a time to highlight the vital role of ubstance abuse prevention in both individual and community health has, to remember those who have lost their lives to substance abuse, to acknowledge those in recovery, as well as children, parents, family, and friends supporting them. Studies show that the earlier an individual starts smoking, drinking or using other drugs, the greater the likelihood of developing addiction. 9 out of 10 people who abuse or are addicted to nicotine, alcohol or other drugs began using these substances before they were 18. Every year that substance use is delayed during the period of adolescent brain development, the risk of addiction and substance abuse decreases. Learn more here.
Event: Health Literacy Month
Date: October 1-31, 2025
Every October, we celebrate Health Literacy Month — a time to recognize the importance of making health information easy to understand and the health care system easier to navigate. Learn more here.
Event: Fire Prevention Week
Date: October 5-11, 2025
This year’s Fire Prevention Week™ (FPW™) campaign, October 5-11, “Charge into Fire Safety™: Lithium-Ion Batteries in Your Home,” works to educate everyone about using these batteries safely. The campaign stresses how important it is to BUY, CHARGE, and RECYCLE safely when it comes to lithium-ion batteries. Learn more here.
Event: National Walk & Roll to School Day
Date: October 8, 2025
Ready, set, go! Register now for the 29th annual National Walk & Roll to School Day on October 8, 2025! Whether addressing the need to make active routes to school safer or encouraging children to be more active, Walk & Roll to School Day events can be powerful tools to inspire lasting change. Equally important, they are lots of fun! Communities are welcome to celebrate any day in October that best fits their schedules. Learn more here.
Webinar: Accelerating Suicide Prevention in Real World-Settings (ASPIRES) Center Webinar Series: Harnessing Big Data to Examine SDOH and Social Media Risks for Youth Suicide Prevention
Date: October 8, 2025, 12-1 PM
Learning Objectives:
1. Identify at least three ways in which big data sources (e.g., EHRs, social media, population-level SDOH datasets) can be integrated to assess youth suicide risk and inform prevention strategies.
2. Describe two or more advanced computational techniques (e.g., machine learning, natural language processing) and explain how each can enhance early detection and personalized intervention for at-risk youth.
3. Analyze one example of a predictive model linking SDOH and addictive screen use trajectories to suicidal behaviors, and evaluate its potential application in clinical or public health settings.
Zoom link (no registration required): https://zoom.us/j/97561019141
Webinar: From Small Tasks to Big Changes: Quality Improvement Tools You Can Use
Date: October 15th, 2025, 2–3 PM ET
How do you ensure that your public health, prevention, and/or child safety strategies are effective, efficient, and meet the needs of your community? Quality Improvement (QI) is a structured, data-driven process used to systematically enhance services, programs, and systems to better meet your goals and have a bigger impact.
In this STAW, you will learn how to build your own QI toolbox through a step-by-step process that incorporates valuable tools and a clear framework. We will provide examples of how this process can be applied to specific goals and strategies, and what it looks like in action. You will also have the opportunity to hear from a participant from our current cohort in the Child Safety Learning Collaborative (CSLC), who will share their story of how they made use of the QI process to identify drivers, test ideas, and make changes (small and large) to improve their process and outcomes.
Zoom link (no registration is required): https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84620733220?pwd=EU9TKFBz1sCEzPQnBW8QKzNOOhBwPz.1
Event: Teen Driver Safety Week
Date: October 19-25, 2025
Teen Driver Safety Week is October 19–25, 2025 – a good opportunity to increase safety messaging across all platforms. A teen’s inexperience behind the wheel makes them more susceptible to crashes, so including teen safety messaging in a traffic safety communication plan is important. Share information with partner organizations to help spread the message across communities. Learn more here.
Event: National School Bus Safety Week
Date: October 20-24, 2025
Held during the third full week of October each year, National School Bus Safety Week is an active and evolving public education program and an excellent way for parents, students, teachers, motorists, school bus operators, school administrators, and other interested parties to join forces and address the importance of school bus safety. Learn more here.
Webinar: Digitizing intimate partner violence: Emerging challenges and advocacy approaches with technology-facilitated abuse
Date: October 21, 2025, 12-1 PM
Join Morgan PettyJohn, PhD and Rachel Voth Schrag, LCSW, PhD, for an insightful discussion on their community-based research and practice experience addressing technology-facilitated abuse in North Texas. Drs. PettyJohn and Voth Schrag are co-founders of the Mavericks Ending Technology-Facilitated Abuse (MAVS ETA) project at The University of Texas at Arlington. They seek to improve prevention and community-based response services for interpersonal violence and are particularly interested in how digital technologies intersect with survivors experiences of violence, both as risk factors for victimization as well as tools for help-seeking and empowerment. Register here.
Webinar: NCPSB Webinar Series: Boost Your Booster Seat Knowledge
Date: October 21, 2025, 2 PM ET
Presented by Julie Mansfield and Britney Lombard, this webinar offers a deep dive into the science behind booster seat safety. We'll start by exploring how a child's anatomy and skeletal development impact seat belt fit and why this is crucial for crash protection. Then, we will examine national booster seat studies to understand common misuses. Finally, we'll highlight unique booster seat features, helping you choose the best option for your child. Register here.
Event: T4CIP Medication Safety Day of Action
Date: October 22, 2025
Join Trainees for Child Injury Prevention on October 22, 2025 for a Day of Action on medication safe storage. The hashtag #StoreMedsSafe will be used on campaign messages. Please join T4CIP by:
Posting on social media using #StoreMedsSafe
Finding, downloading, and sharing social media graphics and other resources
Joining a webinar from 2-3 p.m. ET
Participating in a Twitter/X chat from 12-1 p.m. ET using #StoreMedsSafe
Learn more here.
Webinar: Medication Safe Storage and Disposal Webinar
Date: Oct. 22, 2025, 2-3 p.m. ET
This free webinar will highlight real stories, practical strategies, and tools that both families and healthcare professionals can use to help prevent medication-related injuries in the home. Whether you're a medical trainee, caregiver, or community advocate, you’ll leave with actionable steps to support safer storage and disposal practices in your home, clinic, hospital, or community. Register here.
Event: Red Ribbon Week
Date: October 23-31, 2025
Red Ribbon Week is an ideal way for people and communities to unite and take a visible stand against drugs. Show your personal commitment to a drug-free lifestyle through the symbol of the Red Ribbon, October 23 - 31st. The mission of the Red Ribbon Campaign ® is to present a unified and visible commitment towards the creation of a drug-free America. Learn more here.