Social challenge and reasons for project’s initiation

Immediacy of the social problem

According to the UN, road traffic injuries are one of the three leading causes of death among people aged 5-44 years. If no immediate and efficient action is taken, road traffic injuries will become the fifth leading cause of death globally with a predicted death toll of 2.4 million.

Although in recent years in Russia the average fatality rate in road traffic accidents involving children of 16-years-old and younger was declining, according to the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior the injury rate and harm to health in children is still high due to incorrectly installed child-restraint systems, personal carelessness in most dangerous places for pedestrians, inappropriate use of mechanical mobility equipment, traffic violations by drivers, etc. From the beginning of 2019 to June 2019, 8,795 road accidents involving children were registered in Russia, 233 children died and 9,523 were injured.

Statistics show that the most perceivable and sustainable social solution to this problem is based on an end-to-end approach to early prevention of child road traffic injuries, building a special educational environment and social partnership system aimed to protect children, reinforce the role and status of the family in fostering a safe road behavior culture.

State Traffic Safety Inspectorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior highlights that training children in road safety rules, improving efficiency of teachers and parents in this aspect is one of the key conditions to improve safety, protect health of young road users and reduce traffic accidents with their involvement. 

Road traffic accident statistics and results of discussions of child road traffic injuries in expert community suggest that it is children who are frequently involved in dangerous situations many of which are caused by themselves.

The most common causes of such accidents are:

• lack of observation skills;
• lack of attention;
• insufficient supervision by adults.

Key traffic violations by preschool children and primary school students:

• crossing a road outside of a crosswalk;
• crossing a road at a red traffic light or close to moving vehicles;
• stepping on a road close to a stationary vehicle, entering or exiting it;
• playing on a carriageway or close to it;
• traffic violations while riding bicycles, scooters, etc.

It proves that children lack solid practical skills of safe road behavior and, consequently, inability of young road users to act appropriately in complex road situations. This was the reason for including the families with preschool children in the project.

External reasons for project’s initiation

In 2016, Hyundai together with public sector representatives (Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Research and Development Center on Road Safety of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Department of State Policy on Children’s Rights Protection of the Russian Ministry of Education) and subject matter experts, traffic psychologists of Moscow State University of Psychology & Education and Moscow Automobile and Road Construction State Technical University, and the team of the project’s educational operator, The Art of Training company, organized a working group dedicated to monitoring the quality of children’s education at preschool education establishments and creating a unique educational concept for the project built on the best Russian and global practices of fostering safe road behaviors in preschool children. A series of studies and focus groups were held to identify most urgent educational and social demands brought forward by the professional community and parents, recommendations of the 6th Road Safety for the Safety of Life International Congress were taken into account.

Analysis of existing practices, educational programs and survey of experts revealed an evident lack of working methods and gaps in this field in Russia:

• lack of comprehensive and ready for adoption educational solutions aimed at fostering a safe road behavior culture in parents and responsible parenthood in general;
• lack of up-to-date and high quality instructional framework for preschool children, visual teaching materials and illustrations reflecting the current traffic laws, safe behavior rules, lack of attractive content and learning cases easily understandable by modern parents;
• preschool teachers’ undeveloped skills of teaching in this field and poor own knowledge in current changes in traffic laws and global standards of teaching in safe road thinking and behavior;
• insufficient cross-functional collaboration to ensure children and parents take a comprehensive approach to road traffic safety;
• lack of customized educational techniques for children within the family environment in close cooperation with preschool personnel regarding this topic, etc.

To solve the revealed issues, the Safe Road project was developed that combines the best global educational practices and offers customized, scientifically grounded, innovative educational techniques to foster basic safe road behaviors in preschool children and their parents. The project pays special attention to the family taking into account its key role in maintaining health of children and fostering a safe road behavior culture in them.

Internal reasons for project’s initiation

Hyundai Motor CIS’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach is based on sustainable development goals and key values that have strategic priority for company activities and that are taken into account by Hyundai not only as part of its business strategy, but also in the development and implementation of charity and social welfare projects and initiatives.

Key areas of activity of each Hyundai’s CSR program’ correspond to the company’s five key values and the UN’s sustainable development goals.

Being a responsible automaker and one of the car market leaders, the company has continuously improved safety of its vehicles paying close attention to road traffic accident prevention. This is why Hyundai Motor CIS became the organizer and initiator of an important social partnership aimed at reducing child road traffic injury rates and deploying a unique Safe Road social education project for the entire family in preschool education system.

Project description

            Since 2010, Hyundai Motor CIS have conducted various one-off activities related to road safety for children and adults. In 2016, the company decided to develop a unique and comprehensive social education project Safe Road for the entire family that at the moment is one of the key corporate social responsibility projects of Hyundai Motor CIS.

Hyundai’s values	Business strategy perspective	Corporate social responsibility perspective	UN sustainable development goals
Value 1: CUSTOMER Customer needs are our key priority.	Hyundai offers its customers the most up-to-date and frequently updated model range in Russia.	Hyundai cares a lot not only about customer satisfaction with car quality, but also about their health and health of their close ones. This is why the company continuously improves car quality and active and passive safety systems. As part of fostering a safe road behavior culture in society, Hyundai initiated and is implementing a social education project for the entire family called Safe Road.	Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Value 2: PEOPLE Our corporate culture focuses on unlocking human potential, we are committed to developing our business.	Hyundai wants its business to develop in a harmonious environment.	As part of the Safe Road project, Hyundai tries to tell people of all ages and, especially parents, how important proper road behavior is, because it is what their children’s lives and health may depend upon. Also, the company is building a coherent collaboration with all the stakeholders responsible for  road safety and building a safe road culture in society.
Value 3: GLOBAL REACH We build on the best practices and create global standards.	Hyundai uses progressive ideas and solutions to create reliable and safe vehicles.	Hyundai developed the Safe Road social education project with the help of the leading experts in the fields of road safety, child pedagogy, and innovative educational technologies by systematizing the best global educational practices.	Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Value 4: The challenge We are setting increasingly ambitious goals, looking for new approaches and ideas to achieve them.	Hyundai moves beyond traditional borders and tries to make stylish and high quality vehicles more affordable for customers.	The Safe Road project was launched in 2017. In two years, Hyundai obtained strong results – more than 450 teachers, 5,500 preschoolers and more than 5,300 parents participate in project activities. Monitoring shows that project participants achieved strong results in embracing road safety information and adopting safe road behavior skills. The project get positive feedback from government bodies, experts, teachers, and parents (see quotes and acknowledgments) and is recommended for implementation at preschool education establishments of Russia.
Value 5: COLLABORATION We are committed to make our partners and employees clearly see the vector of our joint efforts and recognize their role in achieving the goals.	Hyundai cars are not just a means of transportation, but an environment that brings people together	Hyundai is actively involving not only its Moscow office personnel, but also personnel from Hyundai regional dealerships to take part in the project. As part of customer days, dealerships carry out special educational entertainment activities dedicated to road safety, and Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Rus organizes a Safe Road festival in the city of Sestroretsk as part of a neighborhood program. In 2019, the plant plans to extend the Safe Road project support to the Northwestern Federal Okrug, and dealerships will set up special Safe Road children’s areas. We strive to make all the brand’s partners contribute to building a safe road behavior culture in our country.	Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

The Safe Road project is a set of information and teaching materials, educational activities and events. It includes:

• Training and instructional support program for preschool education teachers to help adopt unique educational technologies in the field.
• Safe Road two-year training course for preschoolers and training activities for parents carried out by qualified personnel at establishments.
• Interactive lessons, contests, activities dedicated to build a safe road behavior culture for children and their parents.
• Family practical training and special training tasks for parents to consolidate knowledge and develop safe road behavior skills in children.
• Educational and information materials and booklets for specialists and parents.

Project development and implementation stages

Preparatory phase (2016):

• Working group activities, research and focus groups, analysis of Russian and international educational and social practices related to prevention of road traffic injuries, getting expert advice, establishment and coordination of a working group on the project’s topic.

• Development of the project’s concept and content, and information materials with the help of experts from the Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Research and Development Center on Road Safety of the Russian Ministry of the Interior , Department of State Policy on Children’s Rights Protection of the Russian Ministry of Education. Project evaluation by subject matter experts.

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Pilot phase:

• Start of the Safe Road project – October 2017.
• Practical evaluation of the project and internal assessment of its efficiency at preschool educational establishments of Moscow, Moscow Oblast, St. Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast – 2017-2018.

Main phase:

Implementation and proliferation of the project in cooperation with local authorities, external assessment of the project – 2018-2020.

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The project expects children to participate for two years

 The training course is divided into modules and is conducted as part of the main preschool educational program, and pictures a detailed portrait of a graduate, both a child and parent. Each module duration – up to 4 weeks.

Key activities of the course:

• training in theoretical knowledge and concepts;
• game situations, role-playing games, physical and board games, situation modeling;
• practicing physical coordination, safe behavior on the street, carriageway, in transport.

The story of all project activities, the design of handouts and souvenirs reflects the unified style of the South Korean animation series Robocar POLI devoted to traffic laws and produced by RoiVisual.

The Safe Road project is also unique in that its main storyline based on a family road journey and learning safe road behaviors with cartoon characters is intuitive and clear for participating kids and interesting for parents.

To help children absorb safe behavior skills, the training system includes learning games designed to:

• learn about the world around;
• develop psychomotor actions and skills of orientation in space;
• foster a culture of behavior in public spaces and real life road situations.

For parents, the project provides information support and out-of-the-box solutions for building and developing safe road behavior skills in kids:

• checklists, infographics;
• travel kits, light reflecting vests and accessories;
• writing books;
• games, tests;
• educational materials and events.

Syllabus of the Safe Road social education course (first year)

Learning modules for parents	Learning modules for children
0. Initial assessment of a participant’s knowledge, skills	0. On the Way to Kindergarten assessment game
1. Motivational kick-off lesson for parents. About the Safe Road project, traffic laws for pedestrians and drivers, preschoolers behavioral specifics	Module 1: Safety First!
Module 2: Road and road rules
Module 3: Road signs. What is it and why do we need them?
2. Thematic lesson for parents. Basic safe road behavior rules: road ‘traps’, dark, child in a car	Module 4: I am a pedestrian. Rules of behavior in the daylight and in the dark.
Module 5: I am a car passenger.
3. Final lesson for parents. Rules of behavior in public transport. Building a culture of safe road behavior in families. Intermediate assessment.	Module 6: Behavior in public transport.
Module 7: What will protect my health. Dangerous situations on the road.
Module 8: My feelings and my abilities.
Module 9: Following road safety rules is a normal behavior

Syllabus of the Safe Road social education course (second year)

Module	Lesson
Module 1: Review and consolidation of what was learned	Lesson 1: Rules of crossing a carriageway and road behavior. Road signs Lesson 2: Be seen. Road traps Lesson 3: I am a passenger
Module 2: End-to-end simulation of safe road behavior	Lesson 4: On the city streets
Module 3: I am a baby transport user	Lesson 5: I am a responsible baby transport user
Module 4: My feelings and my abilities. Advanced level	Lesson 6: Hearing and sight potential Lesson 7: I am a careful pedestrian
Module 5: Peer-to-peer education Festival lesson for juniors	Lesson 8 and 9: Open lesson at the Police Academy
Module 6: Academy-leaving exam. Final assessment	Lesson 10: Academy-leaving exam Lesson 11: On the Road to School assessment game

Supporting projects and events

The training course involves holding extra creative contests and programs with prizes and gifts. These additional events are designed to reinforce motivation in children and parents to learn, participate in the project and become ambassadors of the safe road behavior culture, in simple and interesting form communicate the importance of this issue and potential solutions for it to a wider audience:

•  My Sade City – family photo contest about road traps. The idea of the contest is to search for and capture on photo various road traps in the city/on the streets and draw up a list of recommendations for children and adults regarding the rules of behavior in road trap situations. The contest expects project participants to collaborate in the way “a family helps a family”.
•  Riding Safe – a contest of video guides on safe use of modern baby transport and related stories.

Unique nature of the project:

• The educational concept of the Safe Road project and results of the project’s practical evaluation received positive feedback and obtained support of the Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Research and Development Center on Road Safety of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Department of State Policy on Children’s Rights Protection of the Russian Ministry of Education. 
• The project has no analogs in modern Russian preschool education and is recommended for wide implementation at preschool establishments in Russia at the federal level.
• This project made a serious contribution to improve operation of preschool education establishments. Personnel were able not only to upgrade their road safety skills, but also improve professional competencies in the implementation of interactive learning technologies for children and parents, application of problem-based and insight learning techniques, scientific experiments, use of a unique monitoring system for education results based on an online platform for data collection and analysis.
• Management of educational institutions received a modern, completely equipped with instructional materials, approved by the professional community and government bodies, preschool educational program on road safety to be integrated into the core educational activities on a permanent basis.

Team and partners 

Team

• Tatyana Sergeyevna Kubatkina, Hyundai Motor CIS, senior specialist for social projects
• Viktoria Vasilyevna Khodasevich, Hyundai Motor CIS, social responsibility projects and PR manager
• Project’s educational operator – Psychology and Pedagogy Eduction Institute, non-profit private educational institution of advanced professional education (The Art of Training company)

The team includes specialists in education methodology, instructors, IT specialists, assessment and monitoring experts, designers and illustrators.

Partners

Partner	Subject and field of cooperation
Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior	Cooperation in choosing the most affected regions, cities and municipalities based on child road traffic injury and child road traffic accident rates.
Research and Development Center on Road Safety of the Russian Ministry of the Interior	Evaluation of all the materials and contents of the project and its curriculum for children and parents, drawing up recommendations for introducing the project’s educational course to preschool education
Department of State Policy on Children’s Rights Protection of the Russian Ministry of Education	Advice and selection of subordinate preschool educational establishments that need this project the most and are ready to implement it Information and organizational partner who provides official support for the project’s integration in preschool education. Jury of related contests and events
Hyundai dealerships in the regions of the project.	Help in implementing the project on the ground (providing vehicles, participating in activities, providing prizes and gifts, notifying potential participants)
Hyundai Motor Manufacturing RUS OOO’s plant	Support for the project’s implementation in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, co-financing the project in the Northwestern Federal Okrug since 2019
RoiVisual (owner of the Robocar Poli brand)	In 2010, Hyundai Motor in South Korea supported the production of an educational animation series about Robocar Poli devoted to road safety. Since 2011, Roi Visual has supported Hyundai projects all over the world, including Russia. As part of the Safe Road project, the South Korean brand provides prizes and gifts to project participants, delivers animation episodes for free, films educational videos.
Preschool educational establishments, regional education committees	Key partner in the practical implementation of the project
Specialist higher education institutions – MADI, MGPPU	Scientific advice, jointly held thematic events for the professional community, exchange of experience, collaboration within the established working group
Good Road of Childhood newspaper, School Counselor magazine of the First September publishing house, I – Parent website	Information partnership, publishing of project materials

Attracting public officials as partners allowed to take a comprehensive approach to project implementation on the regional level, build a sustainable social partnership with educational organizations and apply educational best practices and support activities for all the members of the target audience.

Resources

Human resources

Hyundai Motor CIS OOO personnel are ambassadors of the Safe Road project in preschool educational establishments that their children attend. Employees not only introduce project materials to teachers, but also promote the project in such institutions, speak at meetings of parent committees and associations, and take part in the project themselves as parents.

As of September 2019, 5,617 children and 5,393 parents participated in the project, 477 preschool teachers took comprehensive training, got certificates of training in the implementation of the Safe Road project, upgraded their skills and started to work, 213 learning groups and 57 kindergartens joined the project. A team of 10 subject matter specialists and 8 partners provided resources and instructional support for the project.

Technological and material resources

Preschool educational establishments participate in the project under a social partnership contract and are not required to make any material contributions or upgrade their resources.

Hyundai Motor CIS OOO offers comprehensive training in conducting the Safe Road project for all kindergarten teachers and specialists, provides instructional guidance and professional supervision of classes, advice, and any necessary materials, souvenirs for children, parents, and specialists. A series of motivational activities is arranged for establishments, they are selected based on recommendations from local departments of education and PR departments of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, and based on their own readiness.

The project is presented in the field and online, management of preschool educational establishments receive necessary advice. Then, preschool educational establishments submit applications and motivational letters proving their readiness to participate in the project systemically and in the long term, take trainings, watch video lessons and start to implement the educational course for children and parents.

To participate in the project, a preschool educational establishment has to:

• Select qualified and motivated specialists to implement the project. Appoint a project supervisor on behalf of the preschool educational establishment.
•  Create necessary environment for successful implementation of the project. Accurately follow the syllabus and calendar plan. Provide specialists with necessary resources.
• Provide information support for the project in media and own online resources.
• Provide information to and motivate parents to participate in the project.
• Monitor and assess project efficiency, use the online monitoring platform.
• Closely collaborate with the project organizational committee, continuously communicate over project information channels.

To easily register, collect, analyze data on project effectiveness, the organizers developed the first in Russia electronic monitoring and data processing system for preschool education specialists: http://saferoad-monitoring.ru 

Achieved results

Immediate results:

The Safe Road social education project made a significant contribution to the development of the preschool education in terms of child road traffic injury prevention and improvement of parents’ teaching potential aimed to build a safe road behavior culture:

• Collaboration and communication practices between government bodies, educational institutions and socially responsible businesses in the field of child road traffic injury prevention were systematized and elaborated, a mechanism was created and tested to integrate the project and corresponding activities in preschool education based on current regional demand.
• Significant improvement of education quality in terms of building a safe road behavior culture at preschool education establishments and families confirmed by internal and external monitoring, feedback and opinions of the expert community, parents and educational institution managers.
• Consistent, based on best practices, scientifically grounded and successfully tested innovative system for teaching children in safe road behavior was developed. It promotes personal development of children, customization of training, interactive relationships between participants of the training process (teachers, children, parents), and yields highly sustainable educational results in accordance with international and Russian educational standards.
• Innovative advanced training programs for preschool teachers developed and deployed, comprehensive training and instructional support/resources provided to ensure efficient child road traffic injury prevention and build safe road behavior skills.
• Successful practices and initiatives proliferated to build a safe road behavior culture in the regions of company presence.
• Monitoring shows that compared to the initial level project participants increased their knowledge by 44%, safe road behavior skills were increased by 28%. Over the 2 full years of the Safe Road educational course, the target audience at preschool educational establishments reached a 86% level of compliance with the portrait of a graduate.
• Another result of the project, though not initially planned, was the improvement of interfamily communication in 19% of participating families, children and parents got emotionally closer to each other, parents became deeper and wider involved in teaching and communicating with their children thanks to the adoption of family practices of consolidating knowledge and skills obtained by children and parents at preschool educational establishments, which is confirmed by the survey of parents and project specialists.
• 96% of project specialists highlighted the value and effectiveness of the project in terms of getting advanced training and acquiring new professional skills, plus it brought modern material and instructional resources, new positive experience of cooperating with parents, optimization of their working environment in terms of data processing and analysis thanks to the deployment of a new digital monitoring and data processing system.

At the moment, the project is successfully integrated in preschool education as a permanent official element of the curriculum and introduced into the basic educational program with the support of the Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior, Department of State Policy on Children’s Rights Protection of the Russian Ministry of Education, and is being implemented in Moscow, Moscow Oblast (Domodedovo, Zhukovsky), St. Petersburg, and Leningrad Oblast.

It is also worth mentioning that the project is quite sustainable – by 2020 the Safe Road project expects its website to be launched where all the instructional materials of the project for teachers, children and parents will be hosted. With two years of training and project implementation behind, many teachers are ready to use those resources with other children without the support of the organizers, and parents are ready to print handouts both for themselves and their children. Also, organizers are approached by preschool educational establishments (not project participants) who are willing to buy instructional materials and handouts and take a training course for a fee. According to the implementation strategy of the Safe Road social education project, preschool educational establishments can participate only for free, but the fact itself speaks highly of the project.

Numbers:

5,617 children and 5,393 parents participated in the project, 477 preschool teachers took comprehensive training, got certificates of training in the implementation of the Safe Road project and upgraded their skills, 213 learning groups and 57 kindergartens joined the project.

9 supporting events and contests for specialists and families were held.

Internal project assessment:

Project assessment strategy.

Project efficiency criteria

Efficiency of each stage of project implementation is assessed based on the following criteria:

1. Partnerships. The number of preschool educational establishments and non-governmental organizations participating in the project and partner networks in each region.

2. Reach. The number of preschoolers and adults participated in project events and the educational course, the number of trained preschool education specialists.

3. Cross-functional collaboration. The number of various structures and government bodies involved in project implementation, and the efficiency of communication and cooperation between them during the project.

4. Project assessment by participants. Assessment of the level of satisfaction from participating in the project and experienced changes by participants and specialists.

5. Involvement of and advanced training for preschool specialists. The number of applications for and information requests regarding participation in the project, the number and content of applications for instructional materials and advice, effectiveness of educational programs and subsequent use of educational course technologies in accordance with announced project requirements and standards, the number of specialists who took the professional training course and increased their grade after attestation.

6. Statistics improvement. Positive trends in statistics of road traffic accidents involving preschoolers based on the data of the Ministry of the Interior after a long-term run of the project in the region.

7. Quantitative and qualitative results of taking the educational course by participants confirmed by expert opinions, monitoring data and efficiency assessments by parents and specialists.

8. The number and quality of information materials and media publications about the project, change in public opinion regarding the importance of this problem.

The key effectiveness measurements for this course are quantitative changes in road safety behavior competencies of participants.

To easily register, collect, analyze data on project effectiveness, the organizers developed the first in Russia electronic monitoring and data processing system for preschool education specialists: http://saferoad-monitoring.ru 

The key areas of the monitoring are:

• monitoring individual changes for each project and educational course participant;
• monitoring the efficiency of work with a group of preschoolers;
• monitoring the efficiency of programs and lessons conducted as part of the course;
• analysis of self-evaluation results of project and course participants, assessments by specialists, parents, children, State Traffic Safety Inspectorate officers;
• analysis of the results of activities of project and course participants.

This monitoring system and digital intelligence platform plus subsequent assessment of the efficiency of the implementation of the educational course and the project in general helped solve several crucial tasks:

• determine the success and effectiveness of work performed by preschool educational establishments with the aim to reduce child road traffic injury rates, children education and training of parents in the basics of safe road behavior, select most educationally efficient forms and methods of activity in each region and educational institution;
• provide specialists with a unique and up-to-date digital tool for professional reflection and self-evaluation to increase the efficiency of work with children and parents aimed at preventing child road traffic injuries;
• reinforce proactive partner relationships with parents as fully-fledged project and educational course participants, involve them in monitoring and assessing their own results of taking the course and results of participating children;
• forecast the development of competencies of students with regards to safe behavior in standard and emergency road situations.

Analyzed parameters in questionnaires and observation table

• knowledge of theory – the level of training, understanding of concepts and rules.
• ability to act – degree of behavioral changes, ability to act upon safety rules, being a role model, correcting actions of other people and parents.

• degree of involvement and activity – the need to act and interest in project contents and technologies, motivation, engagement, remembering.

An example of the assessment of safe behavior skills after the 1st year of participation 

External project assessment:

Prior to practical implementation, all the contents, instructional materials and the project’s implementation model in the preschool system were externally assessed and certified by regulatory bodies and senior expert community, official opinions were obtained.  External assessment of project implementation was done partially and selectively in certain preschool educational establishments in each region and city where the project was held, because while the project was on practical evaluation organizers focused their attention and assessment efforts on the internal assessment. In Moscow, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky, St. Petersburg, Sestroretsk, and Leningrad Oblast, external assessment was carried out by members of PR departments and State Traffic Safety Inspectorate officers and members of regional instructional development offices for the prevention of child road traffic injuries. Specialists attended classes given by trained teachers, surveyed parents and children, transfered information about quantitative and qualitative indicators of the efficiency of preschool education, draw up ratings of kindergartens that achieved most success in implementing the project and those who needed additional instructional support. An integral and systemic external assessment of the project is scheduled for 2020-2021 after a full two-year project cycle is completed when there is an opportunity to gage the level of adherence to the existing portrait of an educational course graduate.

Beneficiary feedback:

Teachers and administrators:

Parents:

Challenges and solutions

• The Russian system of child road traffic injury prevention is still not very efficient. The reason, first of all, is the lack of a systemic consistent approach by stakeholders, lack of instructional training of teachers at educational institutions, low expertise level and unreadiness of specialists to work with parents using active education methods.
• Also, many specialists met the project with concerns saying that parents lacked motivation and would not be properly involved in the project, attend workshops and case discussions.
• Developing the project, organizers found out there were no attractive visual teaching materials for children and parents on the subject, not to mention any thematic illustrations, infographics or video lessons, or high quality public service announcement that would be compliant with modern traffic laws and educational design requirements.

• To ensure efficient and sustainable project implementation with such a non-usual target audience as preschool education specialists, organizers had to introduce special motivational techniques, develop a comprehensive instructional support program and digital monitoring and data exchange system, continuously hold supporting activities, contests, motivational meetings, trainings, workshops.
• First of all, it was important to bring to a new level cross-functional collaboration between education specialists, parents, State Traffic Safety Inspectorate officers, members of non-governmental organizations, to build a unified information and education space for fostering safe road behaviors in children and their parents.
•  The project required long-term and painstaking preparations, a deep dive into the subject and working with the expert community not only to keep the project going, but also to get approvals for a numerous teaching illustrations, correct use of road safety terms and concepts from the  perspective of traffic laws, current regulations and standards. Focus groups and research were conducted to integrate scientific experiments and insight learning techniques simulating dangerous road situations into the project.

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Plans of further development   

The company intends to continue coherent and focused implementation of the Safe Road project increasing the number of partners in regions of its presence, introducing new and unique information and communications technologies related to road safety and promoting a safe road behavior culture, increasing the number of regional activities together with local professional communities and non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and a large-scale public-awareness media campaign on this topic.

After successful practical evaluation, the project will be adopted by preschool education systems in the regions of the company’s presence. In 2019, together with the Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior and Department of State Policy on Children’s Rights Protection of the Russian Ministry of Education four new projects were selected to be implemented at the federal level based on the following criteria:

• presence of an official dealer of the company and established cross-functional links in the region that ensure involvement of all the stakeholders and cooperation of businesses, government bodies and local community for efficient implementation of education policy aimed at fostering a safe road behavior culture and child road traffic injury reduction.  Dealer network is expected to be actively engaged in project implementation since 2020. 
• High road traffic injury rate according to statistics and recommendations of the Main Traffic Safety Directorate of the Russian Ministry of the Interior.

The project will see continuous development of unique innovative social education technologies, activities and materials for education specialists, professional non-governmental and educational organizations working in this field, and for children and parents.

They include:

• Mobile schools, ‘smart’ buses equipped with insight learning resources to conduct field interactive classes and road experiments
• Interactive learning spaces, shows and exhibitions dedicated to road safety at museums and exhibition centers, public parks and spaces, dealerships
• Parent clubs and lecture halls
• Family schools and educational festivals dedicated to road safety and responsible road behavior

Partner with relevant higher education institutions to develop training courses and materials for a new specialty in Russia – Road Psychologist – based on analysis and adaptation of the best Russian and international practices in the field.

Since 2020, each region of presence will establish a resource center where round tables, conferences, professional contests will be held to proliferate best practices in fostering a safe road behavior culture in children and parents.

Each year, the project’s reach in Russia is expected to grow with new participants actively joining the program.

Recommendations

• To ensure efficient implementation of such social education projects, special attention should be paid to continuously motivate kindergarten specialists, provide comprehensive and advanced training not only in terms of educational and game-based work with children, but also in terms of their knowledge of up-to-date traffic laws and safe road behavior, forms and methods of interactive collaboration with parents, ways to motivate them and adopt training in families. Another important condition is providing off-the-shelf instructional solutions to specialists, because, since they are very busy and often emotionally exhausted, they cannot spend lots of time to prepare and elaborate any scenarios or materials, buy missing teaching materials, draw up numerous reports. Educational technologies and techniques must have detailed descriptions and be essentially turnkey solutions with exact scenarios and instructional sets, necessary teaching materials.

• The project involves a lot of communications and cross-functional collaboration, close cooperation between government bodies, educational organizations and socially responsible businesses, therefore, it is important at the preliminary stage to build a clear model of cooperation with all the stakeholders based on local demand and specific experience in the region.

• Maintaining the project and preparing specialists it is important to focus on the achievement of educational results in terms of safe behavior skills and models, provide beneficiaries as many as possible interactive forms and techniques of practical training in close to real life road situations.
• Educational results and social effects of the project largely depend on successful involvement of parents as fully-fledged participants and increasing their parent competency.
• To maintain continuous communications, manage project quality and assess efficiency, advanced digital solutions are required, online platforms, remote data processing and exchange system, which calls for the development of digital skills in education specialists.