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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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Nurse Tells Students to ‘Think First’ About Safety

During her 21-year career as a rehabilitation nurse, Dorothy Zirkle has seen too many teen-agers ending up in wheelchairs as a result of high-risk behaviors, such as diving into unsafe waters or drunken driving.

Now Zirkle and her former patients are going into local elementary schools with a program they hope will discourage kids from engaging in the same high-risk behaviors that have changed the teen-agers’ lives forever.

“The goal is to create safe behaviors early in life rather than changing a negative behavior later,” Zirkle said.

As program manager for the San Diego Think First Injury and Violence Program at Sharp HealthCare, Zirkle has been working for two years with local schools and with organizations involved in kids’ safety to achieve the goal.

Some 80 local elementary schools have already seen success with Zirkle’s program, titled “Think First for Kids.”

The six-week curriculum is designed to educate kids about bicycle, vehicle, sports and recreational safety and violence using cartoon characters, video and problem-solving techniques, Zirkle said.

In addition, Zirkle said, 12 “VIPs” , her former patients , visit with the kids to share their experiences.

The face-to-face encounters help the teen-agers with their healing process and at the same time is an eye-opener for the younger children.

Sylvia Casas-Werkman, a former principal of Johnson Elementary School in El Cajon, who used the curriculum, said tests have shown children were more knowledgeable about safety after seeing the program.

Zirkle depends entirely on donations to run the program. For 2000, she budgeted $300,000 to run the program, said a spokeswoman.

Next year, the budget is scheduled to increase to $370,000.

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