Windham County Safe Kids is an outstanding example of Rescue’s commitment to preventing 911 calls as opposed to just answering them. Many children are injured in our area and in the country at large simply due to a lack of education in basic child safety practices. Note that an individual does not have to be a member of Rescue in order to volunteer with Safe Kids. Anyone who is interested in volunteering can call the phone number below.

This section of the Rescue Annual Report was written by Brain Patno, a Rescue Inc. Captain and the Windham County Safe Kids coordinator. Please call Rescue Headquarters at 257-7679 for additional details on car seat checks or for information on other ways in which WCSK can help you or your organization prevent childhood injuries.

Again, please note that we are happy to send a pdf of the current annual report to you via email. It is about a two megabyte file. Please send an email to brattrescinc@comcast.net and put “Annual Report Request” in the subject line.

Windham County Safe Kids (WCSK) is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

We formed in 1999 to address child safety issues in this county with Rescue Inc. as our sponsor.

We currently have two fitting stations: one in Brattleboro, held at Rescue Inc. quarters, and one in Bellows Falls. In the last ten years, our car seat technicians have checked over 500 child car seats.

We have held numerous car seat and helmet safety checks in Brattleboro area schools as well as in the schools of outlying areas. We have participated in several health fairs in the last year, offering car seat safety events and distributing safety materials.

WCSK has donated bike helmets to the Brattleboro Boys & Girls Club, the Vernon School, the Vermont National Guard Readiness Program and the Brattleboro Police Department’s cycling patrol officers.

We are working with the local Pedestrian Safety Group to promote pedestrian safety, visiting the local schools to promote safe crossing at school crosswalks. We also work with this group to promote safety at railroad crossings and at Halloween events.

One new member of our group has received her Child Passenger Safety training certificate and five of our current members have completed an update on their Child Passenger Safety training. All of our car seat technicians must be certified by National Safe Kids in order to participate in our program.

Members of our group attended the National Conference on Highway Safety in Portland Oregon this past year and Safe Kids member Steve Clark was chosen by Vermont Governor’s Highway Safety Commission to attend a bus passenger safety event in Reno, Nevada.

The Windham County Safe Kids car fitting station has been awarded a Child Passenger Safety fitting station contract for services and programs for the 2009 fiscal year.

We are dependent on funds raised from several sources and grants from State and National Safe Kids programs. Many volunteers give their time to ensure the safety of the children in Windham County.