Keeping Kids Safe: North Shore-LIJ Trains Nassau Police and Youth Explorers in Car Seat Safety
New Hyde Park, NY (PRWEB) July 24, 2013 -- The North Shore-LIJ Health System today announced that 16 Nassau County Police Department (NCPD) young adult Explorers were among the latest group of community members taught by North Shore-LIJ Health System instructors to properly install car seats.
Car crashes are the biggest killer of American children up to 12-years-old, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Using the correct car seats and restraints for kids can help save their lives and prevent injuries. The North Shore-LIJ Health System’s child passenger safety instructors have been offering child seat safety classes in the community for the past 15 years and host car-seat inspections on Long Island.
During the three-day car seat safety training, 16 NCPD Explorers, volunteers between the ages of 18 and 21, as well as four NCPD personnel, two Town of Hempstead park rangers, two Brookhaven Safety Town educators and a nurse from Nassau University Medical Center learned about the correct car seats to use for children of various ages, heights and weights, as well as how to properly install the car seats. The training took place at Hassel Auto Body in West Babylon for 30 hours over three days in June with the help of a grant from Safe Kids and the New York State Governor’s Traffic Safety Commission.
Debora Riccardi, DNP, Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center director of community outreach, said the key to keeping kids safe in a car is not only instructing parents about the correct seat for their child now, but also how to properly restrain them in the future. Dr. Riccardi presented the training session along with two community health nurse educators -- Joann Stiehl, RN, a child passenger safety instructor and special needs technician, and Daina Shaw, RN, a child passenger safety instructor. Additional child passenger safety instructors from Long Island also assisted with the training.
“These newly trained people will be going out into their communities and helping to educate people about how to properly restrain and protect their children in a car,” Dr. Riccardi said. “This will reinforce the training that we already provide and help it to spread further. And in the case of the Nassau County Police Department Explorers, these young people may choose to become police officers in the future, so this training could help families for years to come.”
Nassau County Police Officer Dan Johannessen, who leads the Explorers program, said of the car seat training, “I strongly believe in the benefits this training has for the community and I’m grateful to the North Shore-LIJ Health System and Debora Riccardi for making this possible.”
Through a grant from Safe Kids and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Cohen Children’s Medical Center has been offering classes to the community about child seat safety for about 15 years.
There are free car seat evaluation events through the year at North Shore-LIJ facilities and other places in Nassau, Suffolk, Queens and the Bronx. Car seat checks will be done at Cohen Children’s Medical Center on Oct. 14 and Nov. 3. For more information and to schedule an appointment, call 718-470-3352 or visit http://www.northshorelij.com/ccmcny/ccmcny-for-patients-and-families/ccmcny-cps-installation.
To learn more about Nassau County Law Enforcement Exploring, visit their website at http://www.nclee.org.
Alexandra Zendrian, North Shore-LIJ Health System, 516-465-2607, [email protected]
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