About the NCH Save & Healthy Children's Coalition

Recognizing that accidental injuries and other health and safety challenges require a coordinated approach, 50 child-serving nonprofit, government, and business organizations joined efforts in 2010 to create the NCH Safe & Healthy Children’s Coalition of Collier County (the Coalition). The Coalition provides a conduit for these organizations to bring programs and services together, address issues collectively, and identify solutions as a team. 

The Coalition is a data-driven organization. It has developed partnerships with agencies responsible for mortality and morbidity data collection, including the District Twenty Medical Examiner Collier County, the Florida Department of Children and Families, and the Bureau of Vital Statistics at the Florida Department of Health. These partnerships help prioritize injury and health-related areas that need to be addressed.

The three leading injury and health-related areas currently being addressed by the Coalition are: 

• Drowning 
• SUIDS/Other Sleep-Related Infant Deaths
• Childhood Obesity

According to the Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, drowning is the leading cause of death among children ages one to four, and suffocation (sleep-related death) is the leading cause of death among children less than one year of age in Collier County. 

The Coalition has developed strong initiatives focused on drowning prevention and safe infant sleep.