Child Safety Action Plan Initiative continues...

Following the success of the first phase of the initiative from July 2004 to March 2007, the European Commission has provided co-funding for all remaining eligible EU Member States and candidate countries to participate in developing national child safety action plans and the original 18 are back along with Cyprus to continue with their own plan development and implementation and to share their experiences with new countries.

In addition to the EC funded countries, Israel, Switzerland and Wales have confirmed they will join the initiative as self-funded partners and several others are considering this option. CSAP II is slated to run from October 2007 to December 2009.

As the new phase gets underway, new country partners will be focusing on:

range of multi-sector partners to work together with them on their national planning process;
assessing the best framework within which to develop their CSAP;
and conducting a situational analysis which includes collecting data to support the production of Child Safety Report Cards and Profiles which are scheduled for public release early 2009.

Continuing countries are working at maintaining momentum to complete their CSAPs and obtaining government endorsement or in the case of Cyprus and Czech Republic have moved onto implementation.

On April 14-15 the first CSAP II Country Coordinators meeting was held in the last divided city in Europe - Nicosia.
The Ministry of Health as Cyprus's CSAP partner hosted the meeting and the Minister of Health officially opened the meeting, warmly welcoming the participants and speaking to the importance of Cyprus’s Child Safety Action Plan.

The meeting was well attended with 20 countries represented:
Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Wales.

Source and more information: http://www.childsafetyeurope.org or contact secretariat@childsafetyeurope.org