Boca Hoops families raised more than $11,000 last weekend to help a player who was badly burned in a recent accident.

Peter O’Gorman, 13, an eighth-grader at Don Estridge High-Tech Middle School, is at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami with severe burns to his chest, arms and legs. Peter, along with his brother and sister, are being raised by their grandfather, himself recovering from prostate cancer.

Peter’s Boca Hoops teammates held a silent auction and sold refreshments last weekend at Sugar Sand Park to raise money to help the family. And  the West Boca Baseball League chipped in another $1,500.

That’s what being a team is all about.

Read more of Peter’s story in a previous post.

KidSafe recommends: Monitor - and limit - your kids' Internet use.

Two local moms are on a mission to make our kids safer – by teaching them to be their own first line of defense.

It’s not about “stranger danger” any more.

These days we have to worry about Internet predators and cyberbullying, in addition to the horrors of abduction and sexual abuse.

Sally Berenzweig and Cherie Benjoseph – familiar to BocaParent readers as regular contributors to our 3-Minute Guru feature – want to educate kids about protecting themselves, in proactive ways they can understand.

Through their nonprofit KidSafe Foundation, these two moms – one a licensed social worker, the other a former psychotherapist – have designed a curriculum based on “fun not fear” to empower kids through education and role-playing.

They bring the program to the community in several ways:

• Through family events at local  schools, where parents and kids attend separate sessions simultaneously
• through an eight-week program in schools (half-hour lessons once a week)
• seminars for parents
• workshops for teachers
• small private groups in a home or clubhouse

The program has reached about 14,000 kids over the past few years.

KidSafe brought its Family Event to Addison Mizner Elementary School on Jan. 10 (funded by a grant from the Junior League of Boca Raton) – and will present it at Waters Edge Elementary in West Boca at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 19. (It’s open to the public).

In her presentation to parents, Berenzweig talked about teaching a language of safety. (We all know what “Stop, Drop and Roll” means, for example).

“Our children are going to be safe if we are all on the same page,” she said. “It takes all of us.”

Some of the statistics she shared:

• 90 percent of child sex abuse victims are abused by someone they know (not a stranger)
• 1 in 4 kids is being bullied; 1 in 5 admits to being a bully
• Most sex offenders seem to be upstanding citizens

Some of the lessons KidSafe teaches children:

• If you are lost, the best person to ask for  help is a mother with children
• If a stranger approaches, immediately take five steps back
• The difference between a good secret (like a surprise party – happy ending) and a bad one (no ending, bad feeling)

And we’re only scratching the surface here.

To bring KidSafe to your school, contact the foundation through its website.

A one-hour family event, with sessions for parents and kids, costs $750. The eight-week classroom program works out to about $24 a student. Many schools get sponsors to pay part of the cost, or hold fund-raisers.

Read more about KidSafe:

The foundation has published two books to help explain some of the concepts to kids, including a new one, My Body is Special and Belongs to Me. You can order them online through KidSafe.

The KidSafe moms have covered these topics in 3-Minute Guru:

Keeping kids safe on holiday visits

Helping kids learn from mistakes

Is there a gun in the house? Safety tips

Teach kids to say no – for safety sake

On their own: Walk to school, home alone

Reporting vs. tattling: Know the difference

How to remember kid’s in the back seat

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted on May 23, 2010.

One of the most confusing issues in the kid-equipment arena is figuring out what kind of car seat they need for what stage. When  should you transition to a booster seat?  When will they be safe in only a seatbelt?

 Florida law provides no guidance. It is one of only a handful of states with minimal seatbelt requirements for kids — mandating only that kids 5 and under be restrained somehow, and that kids 3 and younger ride in a car seat.

 Safety experts recommend that kids ride in a booster seat until they weigh 80 pounds and stand 4’9. This is so that seat belts, which are designed for adults, are in the right position to protect kids in the event of an accident.

 So as you gear up for summer road trips through other states, be prepared for the possibility of stricter laws elsewhere. (For example, New York law requires kids to be in a child safety restraint until age 8.)

If you have questions about how to install any kind of child seat — 96 percent are installed improperly, according to Palm Beach County Fire Rescue — there are plenty of local experts who can help.

• Boca Raton Police Department:  Experts there will help you install your car seat correctly. Call 561-347-3931 to make an appointment. For more good information on this topic, visit the Boca PD website and click on the Child Safety tab. (Go to this link and click on the Child Safety tab).  
• Palm Beach County Fire Rescue: Safety technicians check car seats from 1 to 5 p.m. the third Wednesday of the month in Boca. Call 561-616-7033 to make an appointment and have this information handy: age and weight of child; make, model and year of the vehicle; manufacturer, name and model number of the car seat.
   

Some other tips: 

• They now make baby seats that can hold a heavier child with the five-point harness. These are meant for bigger toddlers (for instance a 2-year-old who weighs over 40 pounds) who aren’t evelopmentally ready for a booster seat. 
• Kids under 13 should ride in the back seat. 
• Check the National Highway Traffic Safety Admininistration website, for LATCH tethers, car seat ratings and more.