Fall Newsletter

KIM Conference

The annual Kidz in Motion International Child Passenger Safety Conference was held in Orlando, Florida in mid-August and Jasmine from our Safe Kids Grand Forks office was able to attend and get the latest information on all things car seats.

Some highlights:

· Joie car seats (a new manufacturer to the US)
· Nuna’s pet car seats
· New crash testing regulations (expect to see changes in weight limits on car seats in the next year!)
· Updates to the standardized Child Passenger Safety Curriculum
· Golf cart positioner (not a car seat) for kids at least 2 years old
· Car seat training for Law Enforcement
· Advances in technology to prevent heatstroke deaths of children forgotten in cars

North Dakota CPS Workshop

Keeping abreast of the new car seats on the market and technologies being used in motor vehicles is important for our team’s certified child passenger safety technicians. Our team was honored to be a part of the 2024 North Dakota CPS Workshop planning team, and the day saw attendance of over eighty people coming to learn about child passenger safety updates. The event was held in Bismarck, ND at the end of July and we were excited to have some of the major car seat manufacturers there to showcase their new products.

Click here for a summary of the workshop

Ensuring Water Safety: Why Fall is the Perfect Time to Enroll Kids in Swim

Water safety should be a top priority for all families, especially those with young children. Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages 1-4 and the third leading cause for those ages 5-14. These statistics are sobering, but the good news is that swim lessons can significantly reduce the risk of drowning. By teaching children essential water safety skills, we can help ensure their safety and give them the confidence to enjoy the water.

Click here for more info

Fire Prevention Week will be October 6-12 this year. This year's theme is "Smoke Alarms: Make them work for you!"

Click here for smoke alarm tips and guidelines.

Every year, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) partners with local communities to hold Child Passenger Safety Week, which runs from September 15-21 this year.

According to NHTSA, more than a third (39%) of children 14 and younger who died in crashes in 2022 in cars, pickups, vans and SUVs were unbuckled. It is never safer to ride unbuckled in a passenger vehicle – no matter how short the trip or how big the vehicle.

When it comes to child passengers, there is a right seat for every age and developmental stage — from infants to teens. Whether it’s a rear-facing car seat, a forward-facing car seat installed with a tether, a booster seat, or a seat belt, a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician can put parents’ minds at ease by discussing correct car seat selection and showing them how to correctly install that seat in their vehicle. Children should stay in each seat and position until they outgrow those limits, and it’s important for all children under 13 to ride in the back seat.

Safe Kids Grand Forks offers regularly scheduled checkup events to help caregivers ensure they are using the right seat and using it correctly. During Child Passenger Safety Week additional checkup events have been scheduled in Grand Forks and Michigan, ND. For a full list of upcoming checkup events and their locations visit https://safekidsgf.com/events.html#Calendar

It’s also important for caregivers to register their car seats with the manufacturer so they can be notified in the event of a recall. Download NHTSA’s SaferCar app, which allows users to save their vehicle, car seat, and tire info in a virtual garage. If any of the saved equipment is included in a safety recall, the app will send a notification.

For more information on child car seat safety, as well as how to find other car seat checkup events, go to www.nhtsa.gov/therightseat.

New Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians

We want to congratulate our 20 new Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians from the May East Grand Forks class and June Bemidji class! These individuals represent a number of different agencies and organizations and will further expand our efforts to promote car seat safety throughout our region.

This class is no small undertaking—these folks spent over 30 hours with us, learning about seatbelt systems, types of car seats, crash dynamics and car seat law--and that was all before they even TOUCHED a car seat! Their “final exam” was a car seat check event. Huge thanks to the Blue Line Clue Arena staff on the East Side, who helped us with that last minute change because of torrential rain that day and to the Beltrami County Fairgrounds for the classroom space in Bemidji.

We are so grateful that these individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to train with us, and that their organizations saw the value in allowing them the time to become CPSTs. These folks will certainly make a big impact on the safety of children in our communities.

Child Passenger Safety on School Buses Training in Minot

A dynamic group of pupil transportation providers met at the end of July in Minot to take part in our school bus training. The 25 participants met at the Minot Head Start building and learned about using conventional and bus-specific child safety restraint systems (CSRS) for students needing a little extra protection while riding the bus.

Click the photo below for a brief summary of the training.

Safe Kids Grand Forks will be offering the same training in East Grand Forks this October. To register, click on the flyer below.

Staff Support Spotlight

The work at Safe Kids Grand Forks takes many people to carry out – staff, volunteers and contracted help (i.e. Thanks Christi for your amazing work with our website). Most recently, we have received help from Susan Heredia (pictured here) with the Altru Health Foundation for some of our grant reporting work, car seat checklist data entry and various other computer related projects. Susan has been such a blessing to our team, and we are grateful for her on-going support of our injury prevention work and thankful to the Foundation for lending us her services!!

Possibilities With Partnerships

Safe Kids Grand Forks is blessed with many amazing partnerships and much of the work that we do would not be possible without them. This past summer, we had the ability to garner two new partnerships that have helped us immensely with our child passenger safety and heatstroke work throughout the region. We are excited to share about these partnerships and the role they have played in our injury prevention efforts.

This past spring, we learned that we were the recipient of a grant from Safe Kids Worldwide and State Farm. This opportunity allowed us to receive State Farm branded materials such as a tent, table covers, event banners, shirts and most importantly a wonderful heatstroke awareness device and car seat training bench. These tools have been impactful in our training events. Parents and caregivers are astounded at the variation of the temperature of inside vehicles and outside temps. (See the visual below.) Thank you, State Farm for your support of our work!!

Another fabulous partnership that we have, thanks to a successful grant application, is a Buckle Up for Life grant that provided us with fifty free car seats to distribute to clients in need. This program is in its 20th year and was established by Toyota and Cincinnati Children’s. These organizations understand that many clients would like for their children to ride safer, but often buying a car seat can be financially difficult. They have provided us with car seats that we can distribute to our clients in need. As we conduct our car seat checkup events around the region, it is wonderful to have resources such as this available for those that qualify. If you are in need of a car seat, contact our office and we will determine how to best assist you. Again, we thank, Toyota, Cincinnati Children’s and State Farm for their partnership in our important work.

Welcome the newest car seat brand on the market, Joie! (pronounced Joy). This company has been around in the UK for 13 years, but will start hitting our US market the end of August. They have affordable car seats and strollers.

Joie’s seats on the market include infant seats, rotating convertible seats and booster seats.

The seat we are highlighting is the Mint Latch. This is an infant car seat, but it doesn’t come with a base. The seat has lower anchor connectors built right into the shell of the seat that rotate down into position when you are ready to use it in the car and click into the lower anchor attachments in the bite of your vehicle seat – no tightening needed!

This car seat can be used from 4-30 pounds and is good for 7 years. This car seat retails for $249.99 or can be purchased with a stroller to make it a travel system for $489.99

If you missed the Child Passenger Safety in Ambulance training offered on-line in April, a recording of it can be found at this link:

https://www.hhs.nd.gov/health/EMS/EMSC

Click on the EMSC Resources Tab and a link to the video training can be accessed there. For questions or additional help with ambulance transport questions, please reach out to Carma Hanson, Safe Kids Grand Forks Coordinator at chanson@altru.org.

Safe Kids Grand Forks Team Welcomes Two New Team Members

Our office recently added two new flex time employees. Meet Amanda and Kenzie. We are excited to have them join us and think they will be amazing additions to our team. Look for them at upcoming events!