How to Provide Community Education
Preparation
Several things need to be considered in order to provide targeted education that is well received by the community.
Things to consider are:
- Have you reviewed the most up-to-date CPS technical information?
- Who is your targeted audience and what are their informational needs?
- How much time do you have to provide the wanted information?
- What materials do you need to provide this information?
- Would the audience benefit more from a pre-organized presentation, more hands on demonstrations, or a combination of the two?
- How are you going to promote your event so that it is well attended?
When planning a community education opportunity, speaking with community representatives beforehand about their expectations will flesh out the answers to most of these questions. What you have in mind for community education might not align with what the audience most wants from the presentation. Proper planning, but being flexible, will maximize what your audience will get out of your child restraint education.
Presenting a quality child passenger safety seat educational class can not only satisfy CPS Tech recertification requirements, but also promotes proper child transportation and most importantly can mean the difference in whether or not a child survives a collision event.
Define your Target Audience
Before you begin to design media, trainings, presentations, or other materials that target specific groups in your community it is important to understand what makes them or their needs unique from other drivers. If you have collected data through vehicle observations (link data module observation section) or elicitation interviews (link data module qualitative data) you may already have valuable data that will help clarify or influence your approach. If this type of data is unavailable to you or it has raised more questions, you may want to develop a simple knowledge and needs questionnaire to better guide your approach (see attached sample questionnaire).
Community Corroboration
Once you feel you have enough information to understand whom your target audience is and what their knowledge and needs are, you may want to take is to connect with other programs that are serving these drivers. Determine which of these programs are also prepared to provide guidance or assistance regarding child passenger safety.
- What does the program or program staff people know about child passenger safety?
- What, if any, services or assistance is provided if the user of their program has a child safety seat related need?
- What would they be willing to do if they were given the right training, direction, resources or materials?
Below is just a small list of potential partners you may find in your community or region. These partners may be valuable in helping you develop further materials or resources for these caregivers.
- Local Police and Fire departments
- Schools and aftercare employees
- Social Service departments
- Doctor’s office
- Safety Coalitions
- org
Developing Focused Presentations
Examples of community organizations 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
Additionally, Family Resource Centers and working at a health fair where you are primarily talking about child passenger safety also qualifies for recertification. When planning your training consider your audience, 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.
You will be contacting the organizations you will be holding trainings with to set up times and dates as well as venues, when you do this it is key to ask the following:
- Who will be the audience?
- What do they expect to learn?
- What level of technical information do they expect?
It is encouraged to ask about these elements to allow you to customize the presentation to their needs.
- Preschool or Head Start parents might most benefit from a presentation covering booster seat awareness, as most 4-year-olds have already been 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 determine size to select an appropriate seat, or links to resources available for non-parent drivers for assistance with obtaining or installing a seat
- Law enforcement could be further customized to meet the unique needs of officers to identify proper use and gross misuse of the different types of child safety seats as well as a review national recommendations and what is encompassed in state and Tribal child passenger restraint laws (Add link to the beginning of law enforcement section of this module)
Basic community child passenger safety seat workshops should include elements of the following list dependent upon the time structure of the event and the potential participants:
- 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
Presentation Examples
My Experience (Becca)
In 2010 and 2011 the Colville Confederated Tribes (http://www.colvilletribes.com) Tribal Health Programs worked with Native CARS to strengthen child passenger safety awareness with Native American caregivers. Tribal Health employees provided more than 12 two-hour basic car seat educational classes to four different tribal communities. (Link to the Power Point Presentation)
These classes were instrumental in getting child passenger safety awareness at the forefront of the communities mind. Over 100 participants completed this 2-hour class and received a free car seat as an incentive. As a result of positive feedback from participants in this class and an aggressive media campaign (add link to media section) on the Colville Reservation a child passenger safety seat law was proposed for the reservation and enacted in August of 2011 (Add link to beginning law enforcement section of this module).
Below are several examples of child passenger safety seat education presentations (including the Colville Tribe 2-hour presentation) that a new and continuing CPS Tech could use to fulfill their recertification requirements. Accompanying these presentations are a 1) teacher’s guide (Add hyperlink to guide) to provide sample lesson plans, pre and post tests, ideas on how to put together and agenda, course evaluation form and general advice to the instructor and 2) a sample student handbook (Add link to handbook) to provide agenda, presentation handouts, pre and post tests and evaluation form to those attending your training.
Example Presentations
Timeframe: 2 hours (link to 2-hour presentation)
This presentation is designed for an audience of childcare providers, Law Enforcement, Health Educators, or other child service providers looking to strengthen their general understanding of proper child passenger safety seat use.
Timeframe: 45 minutes (link to 45 minute presentation)
This presentation is designed for an audience that might include any of the above-mentioned disciplines, but need a more abbreviated presentation. It would also be more appropriate for group meetings such as the PTA, Head start, child-birthing classes, or other meetings where time is limited.
Timeframe: 30 minutes (link to 30 minute presentation)
This presentation is designed for elders and other non-parent drivers that may regularly transport children. This presentation assumes drivers have little knowledge of child safety seats and how to determine the correct type of seat for a child.
Timeframe: 15 minutes (link to 15 minute presentation)
This presentation is designed for an audience that works specifically with booster seat aged children, such as Head start and preschool parents and teachers.
Timeframe: 8-12 hours (Link to Indian Health Service (IHS) Safe Native American Passengers (SNAP))
Designed after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) National Standardized Child Passenger Safety Training, this 12-hour course is Native American specific and introduces attendees to the basic concepts of child passenger safety (CPS). Intended audiences include: Checkup event volunteers, Health Educators, Community Health Representatives, EMS personnel, Fire personnel, Law Enforcement, Tribal Environmental Health Specialists/Practitioners, and Child Care Providers.