CPS EXPRESS!                                                                                             August 19, 2004   Transitions at SAFE KIDS New CPS Certification Manager SAFE KIDS is pleased to announce that Kerry Chausmer will begin as the new manager of CPS Certification on Monday, August 23. Kerry has been involved with child passenger safety for about 10 years and founded the SAFE KIDS Louisiana coalition in 1994. She was originally certified as a CPS technician in 1998 and has been a certified instructor since 1999. Voice Mail Inquiries Unfortunately, some issues with the voice mail system in our Washington, D.C. office have been identified, and many messages were lost. The problems have been corrected and a new system is in place, but lost messages cannot be recovered. If you left a voice message at our D.C. office during the past six weeks and your call has not been returned or resolved in some other fashion, please contact us again. We apologize for any delay or inconvenience. NOTE: These issues did not affect our toll-free customer service line. Important Reminders Please log into your online certification profile to verify and update your contact information.  If the information contained is incorrect or out of date, important communications will not reach you.  Please remind your certified friends and colleagues to do the same.  If you have any questions, please call 877-366-8154 for assistance. Certification Program Feature Logging Seat Check Activity for Re-Certification All certified individuals need to have their required practical skills items verified by one or more certified instructors for re-certification.  Over the two-year certification period, whenever technicians and instructors complete one or more of the required installations, they should log into their online certification profile and go to 'Log Seat Check Activity' to indicate which instructor verified the installation(s).  The instructor will be automatically notified and can then approve the installation(s) online.  This process must be completed before the re-certification application and examination are available. Step-by-step instructions for logging and verifying seat check activity can be found here. The five items requiring instructor verification have not changed for the past several years.  What has evolved, however, is that submitting copies of checkup forms is no longer acceptable.  While the forms can show that a certified individual checked a seat, the form cannot determine whether the inspection and installation were correct.  Form substitution was allowed in the early part of the program because the number of instructors was limited.  With more than 1,200 instructors in the field and a two-year period to make contact with one, only direct verification now meets the re-certification requirements. Tools to assist technicians and instructors with logging and verifying seat check activity are available online.  When a certified individual attends a checkup event or other function and a certified instructor witnesses the individual correctly selecting, installing and using a child restraint, he or she can document the item on the Practical Skills for Re-certification Log and ask the instructor to sign the form.  Since an instructor may be asked to verify skills for many individuals, the Verified Inspection Activity Worksheet can assist the instructor in keeping track of events attended and practical skills witnessed. Several conscientious event coordinators and individual instructors have reported that they keep a supply of both forms on hand for events where verification may take place.  While all actual logging and verification of seat check activity must occur using the online system and these forms will not be accepted by SAFE KIDS, they are useful tools for keeping personal records of activity.  Customer Service As always, you may contact Customer Service at cps.certification@safekids.org or 877-366-8154 with questions or problems that are not addressed on the SAFE KIDS CPS Certification Web site. Please read our Privacy Policy. Certification Program Links Policies and Procedures Step-by-Step Instructions Certification Forms Other Useful Links National CPS Board Web Site NHTSA Web Site State CPS Contact List Inquiries can be mailed to: SAFE KIDS Certification Customer Service 475 Riverside Drive, 6th Floor New York, NY 10115-0089 Please do not reply to this e-mail.   This e-mail was sent to you by: National SAFE KIDS Campaign 1301 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W., Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20004 cps.certification@safekids.org