Blog: Do You Know a Child Passenger Safety Technician?

Posted by: Lorrie Walker at Sep 19, 2011 12:00 AM CDT

Keywords: Education

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Child Passenger Safety Week 2011

Happy National Child Passenger Safety Week! I am a proud nationally certified child passenger safety technician. There are over 30,000 of us actively working to help families keep young children safe in cars. Well over 100,000 of us have received training since the national certification program began in 1998.

Have you ever met a technician? We are public safety workers, police officers, state troopers, highway patrol, sheriffs, security guards, firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMT). We are also nurses, teachers, interested parents and crash investigators. Even the former head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration (NHTSA), Nicole Nason, is a certified technician as is Debbie Hersman, Chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board and Safe Kids USA president, Meri-K Appy. NHTSA’s current administrator, David Strickland, is scheduled to take the rigorous course in the Fall.

The course is tough and involves written and hands-on skills tests. It lasts several days. As a technician I have to be able to open any car door, determine where the car seat will sit, decide whether the seat belt or LATCH system will be used, see if the car seat is recalled and then set it up for the age, weight and height of the child passenger. I work with the parents/caregivers as a partner in getting it right.

In the early days of certification, the technician did all the work, having the caregiver step away from the car while we “fixed” the car seat. Now the parent or caregiver does the majority of work with our suggestions and help. The most important thing for the caregiver to know is how to use his or her car seat in that particular car. But he or she will go home to a second or even third vehicle. They must be able to teach their babysitter, family members and spouse what they learned. Who would have thought that it would take a course to keep children safe in cars?

Unexpected surprises surface at every turn in the field and I am always amazed at the creativity of parents when they are transporting their children. I have been at car seat checkup events when a car pulls in and a whisper passes from team to team to take a look at something unusual in one of the cars. It may be the child who arrives in a lawn chair seated in the back of a cargo van with no seats, or the 35 pound 3 year old still riding in an infant seat that is way too small and the harness is looped over his head but not fastened because it is too short.

What we see at checkup events is unpredictable and we are prepared for anything as we greet parents who obviously care about their child or they would not be there. We have to be non-judgmental. After all, we made the same mistakes with our kids before we knew better. I get great satisfaction when I tell people that we at Safe Kids have inspected 1.4 million car seats and have distributed 500,000 seats to low income families in need. It is great to be part of this group as another Child Passenger Safety Week is launched and more families leave our events happy, competent and satisfied that their child is safe!

If you see something unusual during CPS week, let me know so I can share it with others. Contact me at lwalker@safekids.org.

More About Child Passenger Safety

Comment on this Blog Post:

Posted by Evan Euro at: July 13, 2012

Oh god,i got it.I got a valuable information regarding safety of my child.Thnak you.