On February 14-15, 2019, Peter Jahn led a train-the-trainer course on child restraint use designed for police officers. The course was one of the first courses delivered to police officers by a professional trainer with experience in the field. The training included a series of exercises and roll play to help police officers improve their interactions and communications with drivers who don’t use child safety restraint systems for their child passengers.
The expert has trained 8 police officers as trainers, in order for them to further train their colleagues on correct child restraint use. The training held by Peter Jahn has included the following topics:
* Why do children need appropriate child restraint systems
* What are the needs of appropriate restraint use for older children
* What techniques are available to safety secure childrenWhat are the child responsibilities
* Most frequent problems in using safety systems and the dangers of incorrect use Booster seats and high-back booster use
* Differences in installing car seats
* Most common mistakes in car seat installation steps
* What is the people's awareness on car safety comparing all means of transportation: differences between passenger cars, buses, wagons and other vehicles like train and airplaneDismantling the arguments against the use of child restraint systems: aversion, discomfort, cost, habit.
2022 - Police Refresher on Child Restraint Systems – Best Practice Enforcement Training
The training "Child Restraint Systems. Best Practice for Enforcement" took place in Cluj-Napoca, being part of the Beloved Child on Board Project. A total of. 24 police officers from the IPJ Cluj County Police Inspectorate and the Local Police of Cluj-Napoca took part in the course held by Robert Sušanj, Senior Officer Road Policing, Ret. Police Superintendent, an experienced Global Road Safety Partnership trainer, former head of the Slovenian Road Police, who has held road traffic safety trainings’ around the world. Participating police officers were trained in two days organized as two modules: one theoretical and one practical, both supervised by Robert Sušanj.
The theoretical module was followed by several hours in which traffic police officers simulated possible scenarios that they may encounter in traffic when making road checks regarding the safety of child passengers. From situations where the driver is aggressive, to situations where the police officers had to calm down the child in the car stopped in traffic, the police officers found solutions for each scenario and practiced best communication.
The second day was dedicated exclusively to traffic controls. Thus, the police officers who took part in the training also implemented the new skills learned, within a Police Road Check, mainly for verifying the safety of child passengers and enforcing the existing law.
The practical part was carried out with the help of the commercial partners of our project: Centrul Teri, the Academy for Road Safety and Joie, who brought child restraint systems and showed drivers how to correctly install car seats, booster seats and infant seats, but also how to check if a system is suitable for their child's height, weight and age.
The event was successful and a training video was developed as part of the project, to further enhance knowledge on the topic of best practices for child restraint systems enforcement.
