In 2016, The National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) is taking one of its popular programs in a new direction and online to cost-effectively bring a resource on traffic safety to a much broader audience of young adults. For many years, the NOYS annual summit has educated and engaged our youth affiliates to promote safer, smarter and more responsible driving behaviors.
The biggest challenges of this face-to-face gathering in Washington, DC, which has trained hundreds of teens to become traffic safety advocates, are limited space and funds for travel. This year, using technology and the insight of the target audience, NOYS will debut Youth Safety U and offer an online, innovative “home” for tools developed specifically to share important safety messages and strategies for helping them engage their peers, parents, and community leaders in educating about prevention of teenage injuries and deaths caused by traffic crashes.
The Youth Safety U format will be geared to the way today’s teens are used to receiving information. NOYS will look to experts in training, e-learning and technology as well as our members’ youth leaders for assistance in this project. Traffic safety will be the first of several injury prevention modules. Additional issues related to the prevention of injury, substance use and violence, also integral to the NOYS mission, will be added over time. NOYS will seek input from its members on this valuable channel to promote teen-friendly resources. Youth Safety U shall offer its users incentives for increased knowledge about traffic safety and for those that share the materials through their contacts and preferred social media outlets.