KID Releases New Safety Courses for Children’s Product Designers

For Immediate Release
February 20, 2024

Contact: Nancy Cowles; [email protected]; 312-218-5593

(CHICAGO) – Kids In Danger (KID), a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by fighting for product safety, announces the release of four new masterclass courses as part of the KID Design Safety Toolkit. The new courses are designed for entrepreneurs and businesses that create children’s products and provide information, insights and case studies around designing for safety from leading industry experts.

“We are thrilled to launch these four new masterclass courses to expand our Design Safey Toolkit,” states Nancy Cowles, executive director of KID. “The caliber of expertise provided by the people behind each course is unparalleled, and we are so grateful to have support from global leaders in children’s product safety. The first phase of the KID Design Safety Toolkit has been well-received, and we look forward to adding this next level of information across key children’s product areas including Sleep, At Home, Play and Out & About.”

The four new courses take a deeper dive into how to create and design products more safely in Sleep, At Home, Play and Out & About categories. Leading experts in each area share their knowledge on various design hazards pertaining to each category such as cribs, furniture, toys, and strollers and how to mitigate those hazards.

“As someone who is a researcher in infant death, I consider this Toolkit to be a “must-do” for anyone who is currently designing and manufacturing – or wants to design and manufacture – any product that might be used for infant sleep,” states Rachel Y. Moon, MD, pediatrician and SIDS researcher at University of Virginia School of Medicine. “There are so many products out there that, at first glance, seem like “great ideas” – only to find down the line that they are not appropriate for an infant to use during sleep, because of the specific characteristics of infants that need to be considered. After all, babies and children are not small adults! There are very unique considerations that need attention when creating and manufacturing products for this age group.”

“The KID Design Safety Toolkit provides an in-depth curriculum that is essential learning for those developing children’s products,” states Don Mays, founder of Product Safety Insights, LLC. “This free online course can change the thinking of designers and help them understand essential product safety beyond that covered by regulatory compliance requirements.”

“It was an absolute honour to be part of the Design Safety Toolkit part 2,” states Geraldine Cosh, MSc, Director of Geraldine Cosh Consulting Ltd. “I completed part 1 which was engaging, easy to navigate and included presentations and videos from international experts in the world of safety – I was proud to get my certificate of completion! This is a must for anyone working in children’s products or product safety. It is an invaluable free resource. As product safety experts, sometimes we don’t invest in our own professional development as much as we should and this is a key way to achieve this.”

The new courses are add-ons to the original Toolkit which was released in 2022 and is a general design safety course. Original Toolkit topics include understanding consumer behavior in the real world, designing and manufacturing safety, the role of market research, marketing with an eye towards safety and age grading and developmental considerations. Spanish and Mandarin subtitles are now available for the general Toolkit course. Both the original Toolkit and the new masterclasses are available free of charge at www.kidsafetytoolkit.org.

Users must complete the general course (approximately 3 to 4 hours) to access the four new courses, which were designed in mind for those who specialize in one or more of the major children’s product categories. The Toolkit also provides users with downloadable resources.

Learn more and register for the KID Design Safety Toolkit here. Major funding for the Toolkit was provided by Amazon. Additional funding was provided by BreathableBaby, ASTM International, Etsy, and QIMA. Read our full contributors list here, including the advisory committee and expert course speakers.

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Kids In Danger (KID) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by fighting for product safety. KID’s mission is to save lives by enhancing transparency and accountability through safer product development, better education, and stronger advocacy for children. www.kidsindanger.org