is a term used to describe a group of chronic conditions affecting body movements and muscle coordination. It is caused by damage to one or more specific areas of the brain, usually occurring during fetal development, or during infancy. It can also occur before, during or shortly following birth. "Cerebral" refers to the brain and "Palsy" to a disorder of movement or posture.

Safety is generally interpreted as implying a real and significant impact on risk of death, injury or damage to property. In response to perceived risks many interventions may be proposed with engineering responses and regulation being two of the most common.

Probably the most common individual response to perceived safety issues is insurance, which compensates for or provides restitution in the case of damage or loss.

Safety engineering is an applied science strongly related to systems engineering and the subset System Safety Engineering. Safety engineering assures that a life-critical system behaves as needed even when pieces fail.

In the real world the term "safety engineering" refers to any act of accident prevention by a person qualified in the field. Safety engineering is often reactionary to adverse events, also described as "incidents", as reflected in accident statistics. This arises largely because of the complexity and difficulty of collecting and analysing data on "near misses".