Program Overview
Camarena Health’s Car Seats Program is an interactive, educational, hands-on class to patients and community members, facilitated by Certified Child Passenger Technicians. The program was developed in 1993 in partnership with our local California Highway Patrol office, funded with a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. After this grant expired, the health center continued the program as a demonstration of its commitment to reducing unintentional injury to children in our community due to the non-use or misuse of child safety seats. Throughout the existence of the program, our organization has received funding from Kids’ Plates, State Farm, and Camarena Health’s Trees for Charity and the Annual Golf Tournament fundraising efforts.
How It Started
Camarena Health’s Car Seat program was developed in 1993 in partnership with our local California Highway Patrol office, funded with a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. After this grant expired, the health center continued the program as a demonstration of its commitment to reducing unintentional injury to children in our community due to the non-use or misuse of child safety seats. Throughout the existence of the program, our organization has received funding from Kids’ Plates, State Farm, and Camarena Health’s Trees for Charity and the Annual Golf Tournament fundraising efforts
The activities under Camarena Health’s Car Seats Program consist of the delivery of an interactive, educational, hands-on class to patients and community members, facilitated by Certified Child Passenger Technicians. The curriculum utilized for the facilitation of the classes includes best practices incorporated from NHTSA’s National Standardized Child Passenger Safety Program Curriculum. The educational sessions focus on the correct use and installation of a car seat and the proper restraint of a child in a car seat; increasing their knowledge and capacity to prevent unintentional child passenger injuries. Classes are facilitated twice per month with an additional English class once every other month; at the end of the session, participants must demonstrate the skills learned; they must safely secure a child (demo doll) in a car seat and properly install the car seat in the Dial-A-Belt training station, ensuring proper use of seat belt according to car seat orientation. Additionally, they must actively work with their car seat, dissecting it to learn proper use, and making the necessary changes to the harness and buckles they will need to meet the needs of their growing child. Participants also learn about the proper use of seat belts and the California Laws for Child Passenger Safety.
What has been some of the impact or successes?
The success of the program is measured by the length of time it has successfully and continually been in existence and the number of people it has served throughout the years. Originally, the program provided only one monthly class; but because of the high need in the community the program increased the number of classes to offer two per month. As of 2015, we added an additional six English classes to the schedule. Now, we offer two Spanish classes per month and 3 classes every other month, 2 in Spanish and one in English to accommodate and meet the needs of our population. The program has successfully distributed hundreds of car seats to hundreds of patients and their families participating in our educational sessions. From 2006 to 2015, Camarena Health distributed a total of 1,754 car seats and has impacted 2,242 community residents participating in our classes, of these, 1,754 were Camarena Health prenatal patients.
I have encountered some patients, participants in our educational classes, out in the community and during health fairs, and it is always a pleasure to hear how grateful they are that they not only received the free car seat, but the educational piece and hands on component that has helped them utilize their seat appropriately. Many of they had utilized a seat before, but admitted they were using it incorrectly because they had no one to show them the proper way.
It is also very fulfilling when some of them have expressed that they have shared the information learned during our sessions, to help other friends and family members utilize their car seats correctly.
– Class Instructor, Camarena Health
