June is National Safety Month. It is the perfect time to join with organizations, agencies, and regular individuals across the country as take a minute to assess our own homes, cars, and work places to make them as safe as possible. As a parent and as a blogger in this social space, I feel it is my duty to help raise awareness of what it takes to keep families safe. After all, that is our number one responsibility as human beings, right? To do what we can to help those around us?
During National Safety Month, the focus is on helping to reduce the leading causes of injury and death. The initiative has a three pronged approached, concentrating on being safe at work, in the car, and in the home. The goal is to help people be aware of possible dangers, work diligently to avoid them, but then also have them be ready to respond if an accident happens.
Parents and National Safety Month
One of the top things parents especially have to think about when it comes to safety is protecting their kids against 
unintentional accidents or injuries. Even an ordinary day can turn tragic. Tragedies don’t stick to bankers hours and often occur when they are least expected. Whether it’s on vacation, during a rainy Saturday at home, or even a mundane day of chores, children can find a way to hurt themselves if you let them.
Simply being aware of safety hazards and taking the proper precautions to avoid them can go a long way to keeping the whole family safe during National Safety Month and beyond.
One organization is focused on doing just that. The American Cleaning Institute® (ACI), representing producers of household cleaning products, launched the KEY Pledge consumer safety education campaign back in June 2013. Their goal is reduce and even eliminate accidents involving liquid laundry packets. They work with partners like me to help raise awareness surrounding the proper usage, storage and handling of liquid laundry packets.
According to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, in 2015, poison centers have received reports of 12,594 unintended exposures to highly-concentrated packets of laundry detergent by children 5 and younger. That’s too many!
ACI is committed to helping parents understand that serious harm including accidental ingestion and eye exposure can occur if children get their hands on liquid laundry packets. Each laundry packet contains highly concentrated liquid laundry detergent and can cause serious injury if they end up in the hands and mouths of children. So keep them locked up, out of reach from curious little hands and in the original container.
ACI is urging parents and caregivers to re-evaluate their homes, particularly their laundry room and routine, to help ensure that children are safe.
During National Safety Month, the ACI encourages everyone to protect the delicates that matter by getting involved, take action, and pledge to be the KEY to a safe laundry room and routine. You can take the KEY Pledge online at http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/pledge/ and follow ACI’s simple steps to be the KEY to your family’s laundry safety. You will be automatically entered into a sweepstakes* to win a $2,500 gift card for a laundry room makeover! Other educational materials and prevention tips are also available on keypledge.com.
*NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Ends on December 31, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Open to legal residents of 50 U.S. and DC, 21 and older. Void where prohibited. For Official Rules, go to http://www.keypledge.com/Keypledge/TermsConditions.html
