Braun Receives Child Passenger Safety Award
Jennifer Braun, Community Action Head Start/Early Head Start Director in Dickinson, was selected to receive the North Dakota Department of Transportation’s (NDDOT) Child Passenger Safety Award. This award was presented to Jennifer by Erv Bren
, Executive Director of Community Action Partnership on February 9.
Jennifer has been a Child Passenger Safety (CPS) technician for six years. Within this time, she has been active in getting regularly scheduled car seat checkups in Dickinson and works closely with members of the community to make these car seat checkups successful. She also worked to become a CPS technician proxy, which is a position that can assist other CPS technicians to become recertified. This was crucial due to a shortage of CPS technicians in the west.
“Jennifer has a passion for helping people with child passenger safety needs and it shows,” said Dawn Mayer with the North Dakota Department of Health, who submitted the nomination. “Dickinson is very lucky to have Jennifer as a CPS advocate in their community.”
In addition to coordinating checkups, Jennifer started teaching the Baby’s First Ride class at the CHI St. Alexis Hospital in Dickinson. This class was created to teach new parents how to safely transport their newborns in their child restraint.
Jennifer also worked with another CPS technician to apply for local funding to purchase car seats for low-income populations in Dickinson. They received funding and were able to purchase car seats and distribute them to families within the Head Start Program and to others that were in desperate need of a car seat.
“With individuals passionate about traffic safety like Jennifer, we can move toward achieving the state’s Vision Zero goal - which is zero motor vehicle fatalities and serious injuries on North Dakota roads,” says Karin Mongeon, Safety Division Director, NDDOT.
The NDDOT receives nominations each year for the following awards: Traffic Safety Officer of the Year, Beyond the Traffic Stop, Drug Recognition Expert Officer of the Year, Child Passenger Safety Awards, Traffic Safety Honor Roll and a Traffic Safety Media Award.
For more information on North Dakota’s Vision Zero traffic safety initiative, visit visionzero.nd.gov.
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