The Riley Safety Store at Riley Hospital for Children has been celebrating its fifth birthday this week by highlighting the five most common childhood home injuries nationwide. The anniversary also highlights the growth and lead role the Riley Safety Store has taken over the years in child safety and injury prevention.

Riley Hospital’s Community Education and Child Advocacy Department created and launched the Riley Safety Store in 2005 as the first children’s hospital-based safety store in the nation to serve families of all children, including those with disabilities or special health care needs.

The Riley Safety Store has also become a blueprint for other hospitals. To date, the Riley Safety Store Team, in partnership with the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, has trained 11 children’s hospitals nationwide to launch their own safety stores.

“Too many children’s lives are lost as a result of unintentional injuries,” said Karen Bruner Stroup, director of Riley’s Community Education and Child Advocacy Department. “This is where the Riley Safety Store comes into play. We’re in business to save children’s lives and to help families with the tools and education they need to keep children safe.”

Since its launch, the Riley Safety Store has evolved and grown. Interest in and demand for the products necessitated a significant expansion of the Riley Safety Store in 2009. Over the past year, the store’s inventory, product sales and foot traffic have doubled. Most recently, the store unveiled its Riley Fit and Healthy Family Store, a mobile cart that provides education and low-cost fitness products like hula hoops, pedometers and yoga mats.

“Our mission is to make safety affordable and accessible to all Hoosier families and their children,” said Cara Fast, manager of the Riley Safety Store. “The store offers low-cost child safety products and injury prevention education. We also have a staff specifically trained to teach parents and children how to properly use our products and how to best practice child safety.”

The concept has already taken hold across the state of Indiana. To date, the Community Education and Child Advocacy Department has expanded Riley’s Safety Store presence to include such locations as the following:

* Clarian West Medical Center in Avon has a Riley Safety Store within the hospital’s gift shop
* Tipton Hospital in Tipton has a free-standing Riley Safety Store
* The Schneck Medical Center in Seymour will soon open a Riley Safety Store via a mobile cart
* The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has a Riley Safety Store inside the Museum Store

“In five short years, the Riley Safety Store has helped thousands of families obtain child safety products they otherwise might not have been able to afford,” Stroup said. “We are working to make it possible for every Indiana family to conveniently access a Riley Safety Store and get the products and education they need to make their homes as safe as possible for all children.”

The Riley Safety Store operates in partnership with The Cheer Guild, a volunteer auxiliary and nonprofit organization that supports Riley and Indiana University Hospitals.

About Riley Hospital for Children
As one of the nation's leading pediatric hospitals and Indiana's first and only comprehensive hospital dedicated exclusively to the care of children, Riley Hospital for Children, a part of Clarian Health, has provided compassionate care, support and comfort to children and their families for 85 years. Each year, Riley Hospital and Riley Hospital at Clarian North serve over 215,000 inpatients and outpatients from across Indiana, the nation and the world. Riley Hospital's partnership with Clarian Health, and its strong affiliation with the Indiana University School of Medicine, makes it the only comprehensive clinical resource for Indiana's children and the premiere source for health-related information for their parents. From simple care associated with the health and wellness of children and less complex specialty care to the most critically-ill and medically complex cases, Riley Hospital for Children is a national leader. Clarian Health operates the Methodist Hospital, Indiana University Hospital and Riley Hospital for Children campuses as a single hospital under Indiana law. Visit Riley Hospital for Children for more information.