Experience
H.Menezes Risk Vision was founded in April 2010 after more than 20 years’ experience of Helena Menezes, its General Director, in the promotion of community’s health and mostly child safety and well-being. This was achieved with the adoption of multi-disciplinary policies and strategies, with a special focus in a mostly exclusive 15 years dedication to injury prevention in Portugal and Europe.
H.Menezes has set up consultancy and training services in the field of risk assessment concerning the impact of choices or decisions in collective life, after acknowledging the importance of built environments in social dynamics and in health as a whole and the evidence that most of the measures at first adopted for the protection of children – together with other good practises and strategies – are beneficial for physical and psychological safety of all generations and, in particular, for the most vulnerable people..
These services help Project teams to make more informed and responsible choices, through the implementation of risk assessment methods and the adoption of a more critical and holistic view on regulations and standards, either National or European, often spread in different sources and hard to access, so that they can generate real health promoting environments in its broadest understanding – physical, mental, social and spiritual.
n H.Menezes Risk Vision we believe in personal and technical skills development for all stakeholders, from politicians and professionals in all imaginable fields, to children and their families, in order to help people to become aware of their individual and social power and responsibility on decisions that can influence their own and other’s quality of life.
About Helena Menezes
Helena Menezes has been working in the field of child health since 1987, with a public health and social paediatrics background.
Currently she runs her own company, H.Menezes Risk Vision, as an independent international consultant and trainer in risk assessment and child safety.
She is also the representative for ANEC – the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation – in the European standardization committee for playground safety (CEN TC 136 SC1) since 2000; she was also the Chair of the ANEC Traffic Safety Working group from 2005 till 2011.
In the last few years, she has also been the ANEC Project advisor in 4 Research and Testing projects (two about the effectiveness of vertical barriers to prevent children from falling or drowning, one on playground impact attenuating surfaces testing, and another one about the performance of Child Restraint Systems in cars for children younger than 4 years of age).
In Portugal, she chaired CT166, the national standardization mirror committee to CEN TC136 (sports equipment, playgrounds and swimming pools) and CEN TC402 (domestic swimming pools) from 2005 till October 2013; she is still a member as an expert.
She is also a member of the national standards mirror committee for the safety of toys and child care articles, since 1995.
In the past
  • Helena Menezes was invited to start the Portuguese Association for Child Safety Promotion (APSI) in 1992 by its founders, a Portuguese paediatrician and a Swedish citizen. She became a member of the Board in 1994 and the President from 2001 to March 2007. She was then the President of the General Assembly until 2010, and currently she is still a member as well as technical consultant and trainer for the organization.
  • She was invited to join ANEC in 1995, as a representative of APSI, and has been a member of the Child safety and the Traffic safety working groups since then.
  • She was also the APSI representative at the European Child Safety Alliance from 2001 to 2007 and the Child Safety Action Plan coordinator at national level from 2005 to 2007
  • For many years she has been a professional certified trainer on risk assessment linked to playground safety, architecture and user safety, among other themes.
  • She has lectured in Portuguese Universities (health, architecture and design, health and education, child development) and has been a speaker at international and national conferences on child health and safety, architecture and building, children in urban environments.