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Featured HASPI Projects
Narinder Dhaliwal appointed to National Safety Board
Narinder Dhaliwal, HASPI project liaison to the Youth Traveling Safely program, has been invited to join the National Child Passenger Safety Board with the next meeting occurring in Chicago, Ill. on August 3 and 4. Dhaliwal will serve as a child safety advocate for the national board and work on the Diversity and Special Needs Subcommittee. The three-year appointment involves up to four 2-day meetings per year. The National Child Passenger Safety Board has been established to provide program direction and technical guidance to states, communities and organizations as a means to maintain a credible, standardized child passenger training and certification program. Additional informational can be obtained from the National Child Passenger Safety Board of www.cpsboard.org.
The purpose of this project, which is funded by a California Kids Plates grant administered through San Diego State University, is to carry out the mission of the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA) to increase child passenger safety through increased knowledge and skill regarding proper installation and maintenance of child passenger safety restraints, also known as known as child car seats. The project works to increase the number of trained child passenger safety technicians in law enforcement and non-law enforcement agencies within Sutter County.Newly trained technicians will, in turn, provide child passenger safety check-up events directly to the public in their communities and provide education and access to low cost or no cost child safety restraints to families in need in Sutter County.
Currently, the project works with law enforcement, public safety and community agencies such as the Yuba City Police and Fire Departments, Sutter County Child Protective Services (CPS), Head Start and School Readiness Project to train their personnel in the 32-hour NHTSA Child Passenger Safety Technician course.
In addition, this project is coordinating, training and facilitating a 14-county Coalition of Child Passenger Safety Technicians serving the northeast region of California. The regional coalition includes Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, and Yuba counties. The purpose of this coalition is to increase local community capacity to provide child passenger safety education, installation and check-up events.
Reaching Low Income Californians: Seminars for Health Professionals
This project, which is funded by the American Cancer Society, provides training seminars for public and private health care and education personnel to increase understanding of the culture of poverty in order to improve the effectiveness of health interventions with low income Californians. These trainings outline best practices for conveying health messages and motivation for behavior change such as smoking cessation to low income communities. Keys for reaching this population are discussed including how to address competing needs and self-esteem perceptions that frustrate healthy life habits among the poor, how to deal with risk-taking behaviors as a way of life, low literacy material development and the critical importance of taking a family approach to healthy living.
These interactive seminars are given throughout California and have focused recently on protecting families from exposure to secondhand smoke in the home and tobacco cessation techniques that meet the needs of the working poor.
SHARE PROJECT
SHARE is a new three-year tobacco control project of the Health and Social Policy Institute (HASPI). The SHARE (Sustainable Health Advances in Rural Environments) project addresses exposure to secondhand smoke in low income housing and tribal casinos in identified rural communities of northern California. The project's objectives are to: 1) conduct educational community outreach; 2) build relationships with local housing leadership including members of rural county public housing authority commissions; 3) build relationships with tribal casino managers and tribal council members; 4) mobilize public housing tenants in identified rural counties 5) develop county-specific and project specific educational materials 6) use local media to inform the public of project activities and increase local support for project objectives; 8) utilize strategic planning sessions with target groups and local tobacco control advocates to plan project strategies 9) evaluate and document project challenges, barriers, and lessons learned.
SHARE staff members work closely with identified rural northern California county health departments. SHARE staff are members of the California State Rural Health Association (CSRHA).
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