WOODLAND, CA (MPG) - The Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency has been awarded a $190,000 single-year grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This grant will fund child passenger safety education and training programs targeted at helping parents and caretakers ensure children are riding safely in vehicles.

Yolo County aims to reduce the risk of child injury while traveling in a vehicle and this grant will support local child passenger safety efforts and help ensure that infant and child safety seats (also known as car seats) are installed and used properly. According to the NHTSA, a correctly used car seat can reduce fatality risk by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers in passenger vehicles.

“Car seats save lives,” said OTS Director Barbara Rooney. “Keeping children safe in a vehicle is as important as ever, and funding for car seat programs play a vital role in ensuring the proper use of child safety seats.”

Activities funded by this grant will include:

• Community education and car seat check events
• Individual car seat checks (by appointment)
• A limited number of car seats available to families in need
• Child Passenger Safety Technician training
• Surveys on car and booster seat compliance rates
• Promotion of safety seat recycling and the importance of discarding used and expired car seats

To learn more about Yolo County’s child passenger safety program, please contact the program at: [email protected]. Residents can call Yolo 2-1-1 for resource information. Follow Yolo County on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/YoloCounty/ or Twitter at: https://twitter.com/YoloCountyCA.