This four-day training provides instruction in the technical aspects of correctly choosing, installing, and using safety seats and other passenger restraint systems, as well as the communication skills necessary for explaining these issues to the public and teaching people how to correctly use safety seats. Individuals who complete the course and participate in supervised and documented field experience can apply for certification from the American Automobile Association as a child safety seat technician. Additional experience leads to certification as a technician instructor, entitling those individuals to teach the four-day technician course.

Through this effort, NHTSA and its partners hope to create a cadre of trained child passenger safety technicians who can educate parents in the proper use of child safety seats. Safe Communities programs that conduct child safety seat education programs or act as resources for such programs would certainly benefit from having coalition members certified as technicians or technician instructors.

Lists of scheduled training courses and certified instructors and technicians are available from state highway safety offices and the NHTSA Regional Offices. Additional information on this program is available on the NHTSA website at www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/childps/Training/CPSQandA.html.