SEATING...IS BELIEVING W
WRITTEN BY JEANETTE REVELES |
JEANETTE@STNONLINE.COM
Experts weigh in on the importance of proper hands-on
training when using child
safety restraint systems on school buses
hile the yellow bus is the safest way for students to get to school, students with disabilities may in some cases
require additional support to ensure their full safety, such as child safety restraint systems. Otherwise known as CSRS, these occupant
restraints encompass a variety of different seating options. According to Sue Shutrump, supervisor of occupational therapy and physical therapy services for the Trumbull County Educational Service Center in Ohio, these can include “different types of car seats or things that function like a car seat.” Car seats used in passenger vehicles, integrated seats, add-on seats or safety vests can also be options. “Tere are different types like the STAR
System or Besi Protech or PCR made by HSM, the portable car seat that is secured to the bus seat, only used specifically in school buses,” said Shutrump “It also would incorpo- rate a safety vest because its been crash tested to ensure a child’s safety in a vehicle. It would also include some of these lap belt add-ons, like the E-Z On lap belt add-on.”
26 School Transportation News • MARCH 2016
equipment was used wrong and there was a child fatality as a result of it. We get injuries from it. It’s just important that you use the equipment in the right form,” said Charley Kennington, director of Innovative Transpor- tation Solutions at Region 4 ESC in Houston and a former Texas state director of school transportation. One of those cases was the 1999 death of
Cynthia Susavage in Quakertown, Pennsylva- nia. Cynthia’s IEP required a CSRS because she had a generalized seizure disorder and related musculo-skeletal problems from Batten Disease that rendered her unable to sit upright
Tere are many reasons a child may have to use a CSRS, such as age and size in the cases of infants and toddlers, or certain medical condi- tions or behavioral disorders. But using these systems alone is simply not enough to ensure a child’s safety—if a bus driver or aide is not properly and thoroughly trained in the usage of CSRS, they may not be fully effective and in some cases, even danger- ous. “Tere have actually been cases where the
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