Parkes Library will host Kids and Traffic Road Safety storytime

Next week’s Storytime at the Parkes Library will focus on road safety for young children and be led by special guests from Kids and Traffic.

Stories, songs, rhymes and crafts will be taking place from 10:30am on Tuesday 24 May with help from the Kids and Traffic team, a group of early childhood road safety education specialists based at Macquarie University and funded by Transport for NSW.

Kids and Traffic Team Leader Louise Cosgrove said that events such as Storytime are a great way to engage with children and families in talking about all the things that they can do together to keep safe when they’re out and about.

“Young children are still developing the skills and understandings needed to keep themselves safe in and around vehicles, so it’s important that the adults in their lives always take responsibility for their safety,” she explained. 

“Key road safety messages for children under five years of age focus on passenger safety, pedestrian safety and safe play. So, always using a child restraint, always holding a grown up’s hand and always wearing a helmet whilst riding a bike or scooter.” 

Library representative Kerryn Jones said the library was pleased to be hosting the session, describing road safety as “an important social issue which affects the community, including our young Storytime members”. 

The Storytime session will be part of a larger visit to the region that Kids and Traffic are undertaking, Parkes Shire Council’s Road Safety and Injury Prevention Officer Melanie Suitor said.

“I’ll be accompanying the Kids and Traffic team during their visit to the Central West, which will also include workshops for early childhood educators, visits to services and of course this Storytime session,” she explained. 

“Early childhood services across NSW are doing some great work in relation to road safety. It’s great to see how ideas, strategies and resources from these workshops and service visits are implemented into programming and planning by educators with children and their families.”

For more information about Kids and Traffic, please see here.