To enhance Miller Children’s goal of educating children and their families about the importance of key preventive measures to reduce pediatric injury and trauma, the Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach safety coalition has hired a new injury prevention coordinator, Danny Luna. This is a new position that was created through a grant from Kohls Cares®, to ensure that education and awareness on injury prevention is prominent in the community.

As part of his new role, Danny will lead the Miller Children’s safety coalition. The collation is a multi-disciplinary team that collaborates to increase the awareness of current childhood safety activities and develops future injury prevention initiatives, throughout Miller Children’s, and into the community. In addition, the safety collation works with outside organizations to hold community events to teach prevention to children who haven’t been injured including the importance of helmet safety, pedestrian safety, pool and heat safety.

Danny’s passion for helping kids comes from his own experiences as a child. When Danny was younger, he would have been considered an “at-risk” youth. He faced academic challenges as well as behavioral problems. Danny’s saving grace was his after-school program that offered him guidance with school and life.

Danny Luna is a recent graduate from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and he is excited to begin this new opportunity at Miller Children’s. Before Danny was hired at Miller Children’s he worked with a local YMCA and coordinated their youth programs. He helped implement an after-school program with the YMCA in collaboration with CSULB that provided mentors for children in the community.

“My desire is to give back to the community,” says Luna. “I saw first hand how programs can change the lives of children and that change is what drives me to help.”

Family experiences have also encouraged Danny to help the community. His older brother has down syndrome and Danny often assists in taking his brother to community events. Occasionally, he stays at the events and enjoys time with his brother.

“Through my experiences with my brother, I have been involved in other community events that reach out to help others. I am excited to join the team at Miller Children’s to help expand my knowledge and apply the skills I have learned to coordinating injury prevention activities and providing childhood safety information to patients, families and the community.”

As injury prevention coordinator, Danny will work with community partnerships, such as Kohl’s Cares® and the safety coalition to develop a successful safety plan for children at Miller Children’s and in the community. The goal of the safety plan is to increase awareness of current childhood safety activities and develop future injury prevention initiatives.

“I believe that my purpose in life is to help out kids in the community. Every time I see a child, I want to find out how I can empower them and enrich their lives.”

In May, the safety coalition will pass out helmets at the Tour of Long Beach.