Menu
Menu
Make It Click Program Toolkit for Tweens: Activities and posters developed for elementary school children. The toolkit seeks to build knowledge about car safety, promote positive attitude for passenger safety, and encourage booster seat, seat belt, and back seat use.
Make it Click is a research supported program targeting increased seat belt/booster seat and back-seat use among 8- to 12-year-old children (tweens). Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death for children. Nearly half of the tweens killed in crashes every year were not wearing their seatbelts, and over half of tweens sit in the front seat.
The program was designed with input from teachers, school staff, and after school organizations to implement components in ways that do not interfere with academic time. The program includes:
The toolkit is available below. It is adaptable to suit your needs. Results show significant improvements in safety behaviors, especially with observed seat belt use.
Belted in the Back Seat Challenge
This is an exciting competition in which groups compete to achieve the highest rate of children buckled up and sitting in the back seat. Children help promote the program and collect the data. Materials include detailed instructions for the challenge, a flyer, and a datasheet used for safety belt observations.
Buckie Buckle Play
This is a fun activity that can involve a large group of tweens. The play increases children’s knowledge and use of seatbelts and raises awareness of car safety issues among the audience. The play can be performed during class time or as an after-school event. Materials include a script, a costume checklist, and logistical information for performing the play.
Creativity Contest
This activity encourages children to develop creative materials illustrating the theme: “How do I stay safe in a car?” Entries can be hung throughout the school to continually reinforce the program’s message. A flyer used to promote the contest and recruit participants is included.
Classroom Activities
Several homework assignments are provided. Each is packaged with teacher lesson notes and tips for how the assignment can fulfill state standards of learning for various subjects.
Social Media Resources
Use of social media is encouraged and can be adapted to meet teachers and/or parents needs to describe the program, notify of upcoming plans, and share accomplishments and results of interventions.
Parent Flyers / Posters
This series of flyers/posters targeting parents was developed based on feedback garnered from tween focus groups. Each of the flyers communicates (quickly) a method or reason for encouraging tweens to sit in the back seat and buckle up. Several of the parent flyers are available depicting White, Black, and Hispanic individuals, and many are available in Spanish language.
Educational Presentation
This ready-made educational presentation targets adults and can be used to inform school, community, and parent groups about keeping 8-12 year-old children safe in the car.
Public Service Announcement Script
This 60-second radio script can be used as a public service announcement in the community, or students can rehearse lines and read it over the loud-speaker at school or other events.
Effectiveness of the Program
Read about the remarkable effects of the Make-it-Click program, which was evaluated in four elementary schools in an urban school district in southeastern Virginia. This overview summarizes the evaluation study, which found significant increases in safety belt use at intervention schools. Students in intervention schools were 3.3 times more likely to wear their safety belts at follow-up compared to those in control schools, despite no difference among the schools at baseline.
Assessment Tools
The following assessment tools can be used to evaluate your use of the Make it Click program materials, if desired. They are meant to be administered at the beginning and end of the program. Included are instructions and a data sheet to record observations of tween restraint use, as well as a pre-post survey for tweens.
The Make-it-Click program has research support for increasing and maintaining seat belt/booster seat use among tweens. Tweens in the intervention schools were 3.3 times more likely to be buckled up following the program compared to tweens at the control schools.
For additional information about the research supporting the Make It Click program, read the full report: Will, K. E., & Dunaway, K. (2017). Evaluation of a Participative Education Process for Increasing Tween Restraint Use in Virginia: The Make it Click Initiative. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology & Behavior, 45, 54-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2016.11.013. The Make-it-Click Program was developed and evaluated by Dr. Kelli England‘s research team at Eastern Virginia Medical School and funded by the Virginia Highway Safety Office.
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Community Health & Research
PO Box 1980
Norfolk, Virginia 23501-1980, USA
Phone: 1-757-446-5799
Materials are free for educational, nonprofit use; citation is appreciated.
The Car Safety Now program was supported by a series of grants from the Virginia DMV Highway Safety Office (Principal Investigator: Kelli England, Ph.D.). The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Virginia DMV, or Virginia Highway Safety Office.
The Car Safety Now program was supported by a series of grants from the Virginia DMV Highway Safety Office (Principal Investigator: Kelli England, Ph.D.). The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Virginia DMV, or Virginia Highway Safety Office.
