Buffalo, NY

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Members Attending: Sharon Bilbrey, Janet Brooks, Marilyn Bull, Emilie Crown, Robert Dallas, Lori Haskett, Carol Helminski, Pam Holt, Mike James, Artie Martin, Michele Mount, Tim Murphy, Deb Trombley, Wanda Vazquez, Thomas Vilt, Lorrie Walker, Eleanor Walters

Members Not Present: Kristen Allen, Kerry Chausmer, Carole Guzzetta, Paul Rizzo

Welcome and Introductions: Pam Holt welcomed the Board.

Curriculum Update: Lorrie Walker and other Board members reported on feedback received from instructors about the new curriculum.

ACTION ITEM: Bill Hall design a website form so instructors can communicate issues to the Board. Include field for solution suggestions. Board members can use the form while taking phone calls about suggestions. State coordinators could coordinate feedback form submissions for instructors in their states.

ACTION ITEM: The most recent curriculum update on Board website is dated March 30. Deb Trombley work with Bill Hall to post a curriculum update after this Board meeting.

ACTION ITEM: Lorrie Walker will share the agenda for the San Antonio Safe Kids rollout session. Lorrie will also provide a list that Safe Kids prepared compiling the minimum equipment and resources that instructors need to get started.

ACTION ITEM: Provide on the Board website a document that describes what instructors need to do to set up a technical update. Although we can provide a template for a technical update, instructors will need to complete the template with current information. The template will refer instructors to the curriculum appendix so they can contact manufacturers for current information.

ACTION ITEM: Instructors need support now during this rollout period. Board members should contact the states they have been assigned to by June 30. Deb Trombley forwarded via email Kristen Allen's original list of states to which Board members are assigned.

Committee Meeting Breakouts #1: The Communication and Diversity committees met.

Committee Meeting Breakouts #2: The Membership and Special Needs committees met.

Board Responses to Lifesavers Feedback Forms

ACTION ITEM: Deb Trombley will compile the Board's answers to questions from the Lifesavers pre-conference sessions and post them on the Board website.

Committee Reports, Discussion, Votes

Communications Committee: Deb Trombley gave an update on Bill Hall's website hits report. The Tech Update and PowerPoint CEU pages are among the Top 10 pages on the website. The CEUs are a popular new feature.

Bob Dallas reported on the Technician Recognition Campaign. He provided a template for a campaign homepage. A new photo showing a correctly installed child restraint is needed for this homepage. The Communications Committee brainstormed media planner items to develop for the Campaign. The Campaign website's audience is the technicians and those who are working with technicians, rather than the general public.

ACTION ITEMS: The Communications and Future Development committees will work together this summer to develop the materials. Deb Trombley will work with Bill Hall to post the materials on a subsite of the Board website by mid-August. The Campaign will be promoted through CPS listserv, CPS Express announcement, Board website, Governors Highway Safety reps. We will explore possible cross-link with NHTSA's September CPS media planner.

Diversity Committee: Wanda Vazquez reported. The committee plans to develop line drawings of car seats including parts labeled in English with arrows pointing to the parts. These labels can be translated into many languages. The drawings could be available on the Board website where translators can sign on and provide a translation. The translated drawing would show the country and region where the translator is from. There could also be a phonetic guide on how to pronounce the words. The drawings would be downloadable for curbside use, so technicians can show the flyer to parents to help guide their conversation about child restraints. There should be a disclaimer regarding translation liability.

ACTION ITEMS: Promote the availability of this translation opportunity to technicians in the August CPS Express. During August techs will translate with translations due by August 30. Our goal is to have these translations on the Board website by October 1.

Membership Committee: Michele Mount reported. The call for new applicants will be posted on the Board website on June 15. Deadline for applications is 5 p.m. CDT July 31. There will be seven elected seats vacated at the end of 2007, however if we replace all seven positions for 2008, there will be no open seats in 2009. The Membership Committee proposed replacing five positions in 2008 and two positions in 2009. One Injury Prevention and one CPS Advocate will be held vacant for one year. Both of these roles have two positions so they both would have a representative on the Board next year. The Bylaws call for 17 to 21 people on the Board. Nineteen people would be on the Board in 2008 under this plan. Michele made a motion that we fill five seats during this membership application period, and keep two vacant for one year. Mike James seconded. Motion passed.

Michele proposed that terms of new Board members begin with the first Board meeting of 2008 instead of January 1, 2008. This change makes sense because we do the logistical changeover at the Board meeting. In addition, outgoing Board memberships would not end on December 31; they are in effect until the first meeting. Michele made a motion that Board membership commences with the first Board meeting of the year. Artie Martin seconded. Motion passed to reflect this change in the Bylaws.

Special Needs Committee: Dr. Marilyn Bull reported. It is important for manufacturers to know that special needs issues are important in the CPS community and readily-available restraints are needed. Keep this message in front of the manufacturers.

ACTION ITEM: A general appeal letter from Carol Helminski on behalf of the Board regarding availability and distribution issues would be helpful.

Obesity in childhood is becoming a child restraint issue. Infants heavier than 30 pounds and under old year old is an issue. The question was raised, when scientific papers as well as general public media stories are written, can transportation and travel be bundled with the other childhood obesity adverse outcomes. Possibility was raised of technicians communicating with parents during a safety seat check, but technicians need guidance on how to discuss this issue. One possibility is discussing prospect of investment in more expensive specialty seats to accommodate children who are very overweight. A fact sheet or graph communicating the correlation between weight and height and special seats and the cost of those seats was discussed. In addition, a red flag on the checklist form could be added for babies above a certain weight/height, to provide a fact sheet to the parent.

June 12, 2007: Day Two

Members Attending: Sharon Bilbrey, Janet Brooks, Marilyn Bull, Kerry Chausmer, Emilie Crown, Robert Dallas, Lori Haskett, Carol Helminski, Pam Holt, Mike James, Artie Martin, Michele Mount, Tim Murphy, Deb Trombley, Wanda Vazquez, Thomas Vilt, Lorrie Walker, Eleanor Walters

Members Not Present: Kristen Allen, Carole Guzzetta, Paul Rizzo

Meeting Guests Present: Marilena Amoni, NHTSA Associate Administrator for Research and Program Development

Certifying Body Report: Kerry Chausmer reported. The National CPS Certification Annual Report is located at http://www.safekids.org/CERTIFICATION/ under "About" and "Statistics".

For the first five months of 2007 since the recertification process changed, the recertification rate has risen to 46.9%, up from 35% in 2006. A success. The question was raised, can we explore the specific reasons for this increase. Kerry said an online survey is possible to do.

Committee Meeting Breakouts #3: Quality Assurance and Certification/Recertification met. Future Development did not meet because it joined the Communications Committee meeting on Day One.

Committee Reports, Discussion, Votes

Certification/Recertification Committee: Artie Martin reported. More technical presentations for CEUs are needed for the Board website. A form is available on the Board website for people to submit presentations. A Board committee will review presentations and approve them for CEUs. Submitters should include five questions for the CEU quiz with their PowerPoint presentation.

ACTION ITEM: The committee will explore adding an additional slide regarding what instructors should do if they choose to download and use presentations from the Board website. The committee will discuss with Bill Hall how to add a slide to the presentations.

Quality Assurance: Sharon Bilbrey and Lorrie Walker reported. The committee discussed possibility of an online survey so students could provide an evaluation. Currently there is no mechanism, as a national body, to evaluate the courses. The evaluation would consist of 1-5 scale questions. If a course evaluation is below a certain rating, a letter will go to lead instructors to notify them.

ACTION ITEM: Email letter will go monthly to students who took courses that month. Two surveys will be available, one for recertification and one for certification. The Quality Assurance committee will explore process for analyzing the data.

Executive Committee Report: Pam Holt raised need for coordination for Board members representing the Board during conference presentations and other speaking engagements. Our Bylaws specify that the Executive Committee must approve speaking engagements. Many Board members speak on behalf of their employers rather than the Board, so discussion decided that defining "Board representation" could be driven by the question "why are you being invited"? Are you being invited to speak because you are on the Board? This may be true for issues regarding the curriculum, the rollout and certification and recertification.

ACTION ITEM: A form will be developed and posted on the Board website, to be completed by people who want Board members to speak. They will email that form to the Secretariat, and the Secretariat will coordinate the request with the Executive Committee. When Board members receive a request, they should direct people to the form on the Board website.

NHTSA Update: Marilena Amoni reported. NHTSA thanks the Board for its work in revising the curriculum. This revision could bring new people to the technician network. NHTSA would also like to recognize GHSA representation on the Board because the State GOHS leadership and CPS coordinators are critical players in the technician network. The reduction of child passenger fatalities is unparalleled in other areas of public health as a result of the technician network.

There will be a School Bus Summit on July 11 in Washington DC. The issue of school belts on buses will be reexamined in a format similar to the February LATCH meeting. There will be invited panels and an open docket.

Marilena brainstormed with the Board on how to utilize the extensive technician network during high visibility media and enforcement campaigns such as Click It or Ticket. The possibility of utilizing the network to help communicate “children in and around cars” issues was also discussed, particularly during safety seat check events which are a point of contact with families. Unified messages for these communications are needed. Child endangerment is another issue, at the nexus of CPS and alcohol fields, when the parent or caregiver is the impaired driver. Potential opportunity for the technician network was explored.

Future Board Meetings: Our next meeting will be October 1–2 in Branson, MO. October 1 will be a full day and October 2 will be a half day.

Our first meeting of 2008 will be January 31 (full day) and February 1 (half day) with location to be determined. Travel days will be January 30 and February 1 afternoon.

Our tentative second meeting of 2008 will be June 10 (full day) and June 11 (half day) with location to be determined. Travel days will be June 9 and June 11 afternoon.

Adjourn: The meeting adjourned at 12:15 p.m.