Simple and preventable injuries are the leading health risk for children 14 years of age and younger. Emergency officials are using education to try to combat the problem.

The National Fire Protection Association, or NFPA, is trying to reduce health risks for young children. It held an introductory meeting at Kate Griffin Junior High School in Meridian Wednesday to discuss the program with local educators.

Now that local schools are requiring teachers to spend time teaching health and safety, the NFPA is bringing the "Risk Watch" program to schools around the area to help reduce those risks and injuries.

"I'm very excited to have this program in the school system. This is something we've been working on for several years now. With all the requirements that the teachers have to teach, we often do not have enough time to get into the school system to teach fire safety education and injury prevention as we would like," said fire prevention specialist Ginger Hand. "So this is really helping us bring that gap, and I'm really excited about it."

"Risk Watch" targets the eight most common causes of injuries among children. Those risks include:
motor vehicle crashes
fires and burns
choking, suffocation and strangulation
poisoning
falls
accidental firearms incidents
bike and pedestrian hazards
water hazards

This program could mean less injuries among young children, but there are some other positive qualities about the program. Among them, it doesn't mean that much extra work for teachers.

"The lesson plans are already laid out for them. It's fun," said Hand. "There's a lot of fun activities for the children to do, and we do have a resource team that we put together with the state department of health, and Meridian Police Department, and of course, Meridian Fire Department. The teachers are able to contact us and we'll come in and teach the children on a certain subject, and have the police department to come in to teach bike and pedestrian safety and also fire alarm safety."