Summer is a time of fun and leisure, but it also means that people need to make sure that their activities in the sun are safe. The Yorkton Family Resource Centre hosted a Summer Safety Day to get families to learn about how to stay safe while having fun this summer.
The day had a wide range of organizations talking about summer safety with parents, whether that meant safety in the water while swimming, while out and about, or just having fun in general. Kids also had the chance to play games, tour fire trucks or jump around in a bouncy obstacle course. Kids First and Public Health also had information for parents on programming and safety information.
Several organizations, including Parkland Search and Rescue, St. John Ambulance, Yorkton Fire Protective Services, RCMP and SGI, hosted a car seat safety clinic for parents. Heather Ritchie and Shauna Jewhurst were out checking seats for parents.
Ritchie says that they checked to make sure the seat is installed correctly into the vehicle, as well as making sure the child is installed correctly in the seat. That means making sure the seat is up to regulations, that the kid is in a seat that is appropriate for their weight, and that it’s safely secured in the car itself.
“There are so many different car seats out there that it’s not that one thing works for each car seat, each one works a little bit different.”
One of the main things they find is that parents are not installing the seats tight enough in the car, for example, or that the anchor system needs to be installed differently. Other issues are seats that can’t physically fit in the car or older seats which are no longer safe as the plastic has broken down over the years.
Ritchie says that it’s not just about checking the seat, but making sure that parents understand how the seat itself works.
“We don’t want to just install your car seat, we want you to understand how to do it yourself so that if you ever have to take it out, to vacuum your seats or to change cars, you understand how to put it back in and can do so without our assistance.”
The goal of the clinics is to get parents educated, and Ritchie says that it’s something that many new parents need as they start using car seats.
“I would say that 90 per cent of them have a deficiency of some sort, almost everyone uses them wrong in some way... Because there are so many different types of car seats, new parents or even parents with older children going to newer seats, don’t understand how they should be installed and different regulations.”
The service is always free, reminds Ritchie, and she recommends all parents with kids in car seats get the seats checked on a regular basis. She notes that SGI’s website has a list of car seat technicians in the area who are able to check seats.
