IOSH Car Seat Safety Course

Child Seat Safety

Car seat training happens all over the world. SafeKids is taking their show on the road and doing CSPT training all around the globe. But that’s not all — the United Kingdom’s Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) also offers a car seat safety course. This one day training course is held by British experts Child Seat Safety Limited. Students receive theoretical and practical training on children’s car seats — their design, use, fit, installation, and maintenance.

The training provides instruction and advice to anyone responsible for the fitting of child restraints. Child Seat Safety offers the only nationally accredited training course licensed by the IOSH. This course is roughly the UK equivalent of the CPST training course.

Flying to the IOSH training

It just so happens that two of our fabulous CSFTL admins are Child Passenger Safety Advocates in the UK and Europe and recently attended this course. They were kind enough to share parts of their day with us.

Maidenhead Station — even the name is cool

The day started early with a short airplane trip. Our small team of admins met up, then took the train to the training facility.

Child Seat Safety Ltd

It’s certainly majestic!  To this American author, this training/conference facility looks like something out of a movie.

In case you were wondering about the caffeine availability, the venue had a coffee/tea/hot chocolate/espresso machine, a water machine for tea, and biscuits. The course included lunch and had a break for tea in the afternoon.

UK Training Seats

Like the car seat training courses we know and love, the IOSH training had our team spend part of the day sitting in a classroom surrounded by some very tantalizing car seats.  For many of us, having to just look at the car seats and not touch them is the hardest part of any training!

Enthusiasm for a wide variety of car seats is universal!

The class was comprised of students from a wide range of experiences — some employees from a retailer, some fire service employees, some police officers, plus our trusty and amazing CSFTL admins. Our admins had a tight transportation schedule, so they ended up taking the final exam early. Naturally, they passed with flying colors!

Why i-Size is important

The course materials spent a good bit of time on the newest European standard for child safety seats: i-Size.

i-Size seats include an additional side impact test that assesses protection when the vehicle is involved in a collision. It also ensures that children who are less than 15 months old ride rear facing. The class also had a glimpse into the proposed next stages for the standard, saw what the car seats are like, and a took closer look at their limits.

IOSH training: the basics

While the course covered a variety of topics and included a great hands-on section, the biggest message was repeated throughout the day, no matter which topic was being discussed. It’s a message that’s near and dear to our hearts: read the instructions, both for the car seat and the vehicle manual.

Mastery of the Team Tex 1-2-3!

After some time in the classroom, it was time to head outside for the vehicle-based portion of the training.  It was time to put the students’ new knowledge to the test.  Admin Nicola was pleased to report back that she’d tackled the challenging Team Tex 1-2-3 car seat installation.  The course taught our students a few tricks for some challenging situations.

IOSH Training

At the end of the day, our team emerged from the training with a renewed sense of knowledge and confidence. Other course attendees had different goals for attending — from expanding a retail knowledge base to having a greater awareness around proper use or being able to help caregivers install their seats properly, everyone in attendance walked away from the day, ready to help any family that comes their way. Course attendees also received a 3 year certification and these fabulous notepads.