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| Dan Aid was founded in 2003 following the death of my son Dan in 2002 after he had a body piercing. We work in close partnership with the Children & Young People Directorate (Safeguarding Children Service), Sheffield City Council Health Protection and the Tattoo & Body Piercing Industry to raise awareness of the risks associated with body piercing and that it is not a government regulated or qualified practice. |
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| Dan Aid is an awareness-raising voluntary organisation offering help and advice to young people about the health risks associated with body piercing, acts as a resource for young people, parents, health professionals and the wider community. Dan Aid also provide advice, assistance, workshops and professional support for practical programmes of educational and other activities around the subject of body piercing, and works in partnership with schools and other agencies. |
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| All About Us |
| Our mission is to challenge and to change attitudes towards body piercing through education, helping to assist, improve and promote safe piercing practice. |
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| Body Piercing is something that affects many teenagers, as it is a commodity that has grown vastly over the last ten years. Predominantly this procedure is unregulated throughout the UK with only voluntary guidelines for local authorities to follow and there are no official government qualifications for body piercing. This basically opens the door for highly motivated individuals to set up a lucrative business fairly easily. By educating our young people about these very serious issues, we are empowering young people to make better informed choices which could impact quite substantially on their health and wellbeing. In 2007 our partnership group produced a high profile publicity campaign for young people and their parents/carers and over 70,000 information leaflets and posters were distributed through local health clinics, schools and colleges to provide impartial advice and information about body piercing, enabling young people to make informed choices. Dan Aid delivers educational workshops to key stage 3, 4, & 5 students as part of their PSHE (Personal, Social & Health Education) curriculum and has recently secured funding to develop a teaching resource pack. The pack will be piloted in selected secondary schools from September 2009. Empowering young people to make better informed, personally responsible choices would impact significantly on their health and wellbeing. This meets the governments Every Child Matters objectives of "Staying Safe", "Being Healthy" and enjoying the freedom to express their individuality in a safe way. Research published in the British Medical Journal (June 2008) states that around 33% of piercings result in complications, some of which require professional help or hospitalization. Failure to safeguard young people from this risk may impact substantially upon their educational and/or future achievements. |
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| Our Mission! |
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