Johnston task force battles child deaths

SMITHFIELD — The number of child fatalities in Johnston County fell to 23 in 2022 from 30 the year before.

“We’re getting better,” Wendy Wilkins, a nurse and chairwoman of Johnston’s Child Fatality Task Force, told County Commissioners on July 15. “I’m grateful for that.”

Still, in 2022,  Johnston lost three children to drownings, two to car crashes, one to a handgun mishap, two to premature births, four to birth defects, two to cancer, one to murder, one to suicide, two to unsafe sleep environments and five to other causes.

“Many of these deaths that occur reoccur often,” Wilkins said. “Our job is to try to figure out ways to prevent them from continuing to happen over and over.”

Wilkins pointed for example to infant deaths in sleep. “Safe sleep,” she said, “is one of those things that we are working really hard on right now, and I think we have made some headway in that direction.”

“In last year’s report, we had five unsafe sleep deaths,” Wilkins noted. “This year, we had two.”

One weapon in the fight against unsafe sleep is the pack-and-play, a portable playpen that doubles as a crib. With a pack-and-play, babies don’t have to sleep between mom and dad, eliminating the risk that an adult will roll over on an infant while sleeping and smother the child.

“A pack-and-play, it’s mobile, so if they are moving from family member to family member for a little while, they can take that with them and keep their baby safe,” Wilkins said.

With help from grant dollars, the group Care Management for At-Risk Children has purchased and distributed 168 pack-and-plays to families in Johnston. A new round of grant funding will allow it to buy 62 more.

“So kudos to them and their work,” Wilkins said of CMARC.

“We’re working on some social media campaigns to address safe sleep,” she added. “We’re also looking at some drawing prevention, including swimming and flooding.”

Last year, the task force developed a crisis referral form for distribution to agencies that respond to child deaths — law enforcement, medical examiners, emergency responders, Social Services and the like.

The aim is to help families struggling after the loss of a child, Wilkins explained. “For example, if the child was lost due to fire, obviously they lost more than the child,” she said. “They’re going to need other things as well.”

The task force can also refer families to mental health services, Wilkins said. “We did receive two referrals this year, and we did assist those families with mental health issues that they were concerned with,” she said. “They were having trouble coping with the loss of their child.”

“So these agencies have that form and distribute it to the families at the death scene,” Wilkins added. “They can accept a referral or they can decline a referral. But they’re left the information so that if they change their mind, they can reach out to those resources themselves.”

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