Revised: March 29, 2012

Permanent Appointed

National Child Passenger Safety Board Members representing American Academy of Pediatrics, American Automobile Association, Governor’s Highway Safety Association, Safe Kids Worldwide, National Safety Council, Safe Kids Worldwide Certification Program, NHTSA Headquarters and NHTSA Regional Office are appointed to the Board by their respective organizations.

Term-Limited Appointed

National Child Passenger Safety Board Members representing child restraint manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers are appointed to the Board by their respective industry associations. These positions serve three year terms. Upon expiration of a term, a representative may be re-appointed for additional three year term(s) by their respective industry associations.

Following is the appointment process for child restraint manufacturer and vehicle manufacturer representatives:

• The Secretariat will send letter to notify appointing organization that their appointed representative’s term will expire and request the name of their proposed nomination for the board.
• The letter will be mailed at the same time the Call for Applications are posted on the board website with a date for response from their organization.
• The appointing organization notifies board of their proposed nomination for board membership by response date.

Open Application Process

National Child Passenger Safety Board Members representing Child Passenger Safety Advocates; Diversity; Injury Prevention/Nursing/Public Health organizations; Public Safety/Law Enforcement/Fire/EMS organizations; and At-Large members are selected through an open application process. The general process for selecting new members is as follows:

Invitation to Apply

The Membership Committee, Chaired by the Board Vice-Chair, posts an announcement in late spring that lists positions that will be open for the following calendar year. At that time, the Board issues an "Invitation to Apply for Board Membership" for the open positions.

An application form with complete instructions for applying is posted for download from cpsboard.org at this time. Applicants are encouraged to apply for more than one position, if appropriate; however, applicants can only be selected to represent one category.

Persons applying to represent an organization are required to have the organization's Executive Director or CEO sign the Application Form.

New Member Application Review Process

Independent Review
The members of the Membership Committee review all applications independently and select the top candidate(s) for each category using the following criteria to review and rank the applications:

• Application is complete.
• Application is submitted on time.
• Applicant meets criteria for the category he/she wishes to represent.
• Application is ranked against other applications in the same category (not across category comparison).
  • Applicant receives special credit if organization does outreach to diverse communities regardless of category of the application.
  • Applicant receives special credit if he/she is a new applicant versus an existing Board member who is re-applying.

If the Board does not receive qualified applications for certain categories, then the Board may re-open the application process for the particular category or categories.

Committee Review
The Membership Committee meets or uses teleconferencing to review applications and come to consensus on the top candidates. The Membership Committee conducts telephone interviews with the top candidates, along with their references, for each open category. The Committee then reviews the overall composition of the proposed "new" Board (i.e., the existing members that would continue to serve into the next calendar year along with the proposed new Board Members) to ensure diversity (i.e., ethnic, professional, gender and geographic) among the Board Members.

Once the Committee determines that the diversity criteria will be met with the recommendations for new members along with continuing members, the Membership Committee recommends the proposed new members to the full Board.

Board Approval
The Membership Committee chair submits the proposed new members to the entire Board for review and approval.

Notification to Applicants
All applicants are sent either a letter from the Board stating their confirmation or a letter of thanks, regrets, and encouragement to apply in the next membership cycle.