You are the child health lead in a primary care trust. The manager of the local Children's Fund comes to ask your advice about how best to meet the Children's Fund sub-objective of reducing inequalities in child health for children aged 5–13. A local child safety organisation has applied to the Children's Fund for a grant to arrange traffic safety education sessions in the local community, teaching children how to cross roads more safely. The manager wonders whether this is the best way to reduce inequalities in child traffic injuries.

Meanwhile, the Children's Fund has done some preliminary work on one of its other objectives of involving the local community. In their consultations with workers, children and families, they have found that:

• Children say it is unfair that they don't have enough safe places to play. They don't like cars speeding through their neighbourhood.

• Parents feel under stress when the kids are in all the time but worry about sending them to the playground on the far side of a busy road.

The Children's Fund is charged with delivering preventive services, listening to what children and families say they need, and …