A look at the Child Passenger Safety program: Buckling up for safety

Does your child’s car seat need a checkup? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, as many as 73 percent of car seats are misused or improperly installed.

The Child Passenger Safety (CPS) program, part of Yale New Haven Hospital’s Center for Injury & Violence Prevention, offers car seat-fitting stations at several Yale New Haven Health delivery networks and promotes proper car seat use – with good reason. Placing children in age- and size-appropriate child and vehicle safety restraint systems can reduce serious and fatal injuries by more than 50 percent.

“We want people to know that there are services to help parents and caregivers, because at the local level, closer to 90 percent of car seats are either misused or improperly installed,” said Nick Aysseh, Center for Injury & Violence Prevention manager.

Common mistakes include improper installation, wrong seat type based on the child’s age and weight and not harnessing the child properly in the seat, Aysseh said.

The Center also offers a General Injury Prevention program and a Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program. It performs injury surveillance for the Consumer Product Safety Commission as well.

The CPS arm has grown in the past decade and now includes six certified car seat technicians, five of whom are certified instructors. The Center provides several four-day certification classes across the state each year and delivers the Department of Transportation (DOT) continuing education classes for technicians statewide.

“The demand for our program is growing,” Aysseh said. ‘We have had great success in New Haven and Bridgeport, and we’re continuing to grow the program at Greenwich Hospital and L+M.”

In addition to providing child passenger safety services for YNHHS, the CPS program has multiple grants with the DOT. One grant supports car seat-fitting stations throughout Connecticut, where parents and caregivers can get their car seats checked for free.

In 2023, the hospital’s CPS program awarded 53 DOT mini-grants and in 2024 awarded 60 grants to help equip car seat-fitting stations throughout the state.

To schedule a free appointment with a CPS-certified technician at Bridgeport, Greenwich, Lawrence+Memorial or Yale New Haven hospitals, call 203-200-KIDS or email [email protected].