Stopping a tragic loss of a child's life because they are not properly restrained in a car is the aim of a program launched at Dubbo.
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The initiative of police working with community groups is reaching out to vulnerable families to ensure they have the correct seats for their younger passengers and the training to put them in place.
It comes after a NSW Ombudsman study found more than half of the children who died as a result of a motor vehicle collision were not properly restrained, Orana highway patrol supervisor Sergeant Shannon Pendlebury said.
The highest risk factors within the data were Aboriginal children, children in rural areas and children from low socio-economic backgrounds, he said.
"So that's one of the reasons why it's focusing on Dubbo, because Dubbo has all three of those risk factors, in terms of children over-represented in crashes," he said.
Already proving a success in Sydney's west, the program is now being trialled in the Dubbo region with a view to roll it out across the state.
It was launched in July at Dubbo and Wellington.
"That involved the Aboriginal liaison officer from Dubbo Regional Council, and also the Wellington Aboriginal Corporation Health Service, and what they were able to do was identify mums with young bubs or mums who are about to give birth that would benefit from this program," Sergeant Pendlebury said.
Parents, grandparents and carers were provided with a correct child restraint seat, which was installed professionally, and they were trained in fitting the seat properly and ensuring the child was properly secured.
"So as much as it was giving them this seat, it was also for training family members on how to get children in and out of the car as well," Sergeant Pendlebury said.
They had reached 10 participants so far, and feedback had been positive, the officer reported.
"People just expect that parents will know how to install a car seat, or put a child in the car seat, but obviously there's a lot of different vehicles out there, and children obviously come in various sizes, and maybe you need to put that seat next to another car seat," he said.
"So there's a lot of factors... and being able to train parents to know what to look for, and going back to that study earlier, is going to greatly increase the likelihood of a child surviving if they were involved in a collision."
The sergeant said while enforcement was certainly one aspect of their role, education was also a big one, and the program went a "long way to that".