To plan a successful training, consider your audience’s needs
Examples of different audiences that could benefit from CPS education include the following:
- Birthing classes
- PTA meetings
- EMS/law enforcement meetings
- Preschool or Head Start programs
- Parenting groups and organizations
- Elder centers
- School functions (family nights, fairs)
- Hospital events
- Well child clinics
- Child Care Resource and Referral
- Public Health
- Early Intervention
- Parenting classes
- Injury Prevention programs
Different groups will have different needs. For example, presentations done for PTA meetings or preschool parents are probably better limited to a basic presentation of 30 minutes, while Emergency Medical Services (EMS) would benefit from a more robust workshop of 2 to 4 hours. Please note that Family Resource Centers and health fairs (where you are primarily talking about child passenger safety) also qualify you for recertification.
When you contact the organizations where you will hold trainings, ask the following:
- Who will be the audience?
- What do they expect to learn?
- What level of technical information do they expect?
Here are some examples of different audiences and their needs:
- Preschool or Head Start parents might most benefit from a presentation covering booster seat awareness, as most 4-year-olds have graduated to booster seats.
- Most birthing classes would benefit from understanding basic installation techniques and the importance of maintaining children in rear-facing child seats until the age of two years.
- Elder centers or non-parent groups may need materials with large fonts, instruction on how to select an appropriate seat, or links to resources that provide assistance to non-parent drivers in obtaining or installing a seat.
- Law enforcement officers need to be able to identify proper use and gross misuse of the different types of child safety seats. They might also benefit from a review of national recommendations, and state and Tribal child passenger restraint laws.
Basic community child passenger safety seat workshops should include some of these elements, depending on the timeframe and audience.
- Why child passenger safety is important.
- National recommendations
- State and Local Child Passenger Safety Seat laws
- What happens in a crash scenario
- Different seat belt systems
- Systems that don’t lock pre-crash
- LATCH
- Child restraint installation basics
- Rear-facing child restraints
- Forward-facing restraints
- Booster Seats
- Common Misuse
- Projectiles
- Seasonal information (winter clothing)
- Guide(s)
- General instruction advice
- Lesson Plan example