Ohio has a new child safety law going into effect at the beginning of next year which requires children younger than 8 years old to be secured in booster seats while riding in a car. Booster seats allow for children who are too large for a car seat to fit in a seat belt properly.

A 6-month warning period, originally slated to begin next month, will begin Oct. 7 instead, with the law scheduled to take full effect (including citations and fines) April 7, 2010.

Gov. Ted Strickland signed the bill into law earlier this year after the National Transportation Safety Board singled Ohio out for needing to switch to a booster law late last year. Ohio is now the 44th state to enact a booster seat law, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). According to the Ohio Booster Seat Coalition, 60 percent of parents don’t use boosters but they are 54 percent more likely if it is a law.

The swing set selected to be erected on the south lawn of the White House is gaining some recognition from child safety advocates as far as the overall safety of the playground equipment goes for the Obama children. The swing set that was selected by White House staff has had issues of recalls in the past, and many wonder if the problems are solved or if the Obama kids could potentially suffer an injury while playing.

In 2006, more than 18,000 Rainbow Play Systems swing seats were recalled because the part, made in China, could unexpectedly break in half. Rainbow voluntarily recalled the swing seats after 84 reports of broken seats, including the case a 2-year-old girl who suffered a broken wrist when she fell to the ground. Rainbow also voluntarily recalled 7,000 sets in 2000 after the company received seven reports of the chains holding the seats breaking.

Today, the company makes its seats and other major parts in the United States, although it still imports some smaller bolts and hardware from other countries. Foster said company officials regularly inspect foreign facilities they work with and "we recheck everything ourselves in America."

"I would assume that they wouldn’t have this particular problem again," Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger, a children’s safety advocacy group, said Thursday.

When you leave your child in short term day care, such as at your gym, how well do you vet the child care provider? A Massachusetts woman found out the hard way that there are many more dangers in short term child care when her daughter choked on a piece of candy left out in the room. There are also no real laws in place to govern short term child care facilities.

[W]hat she learned is that there are no laws to regulate day care at health clubs, and that all occasional and short-term child care is exempt from the high standards imposed on scheduled day care.

Matt Veno, communication director for the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, while praising the state’s "rigorous, nationally recognized licensing standards," suggests that parents who leave their children for short-term care log on to the EEC’s website www.eec.state.ma.us and click on "Tips on choosing child care."

Health clubs aren’t the only ones that get a pass. So do resorts, after-school programs, and play groups at churches and in supermarkets and malls – all the places where parents drop off their kids for an hour or two.

There is another false Amber Alert circulating, this time in the middle Tennessee area. WSMV.com in Nashville has details on the false report:

The Director of the Humphreys County 911 operations said a false text message was distributed Monday indicating there was an Amber Alert for a child.

Director Bobby Brown said the false message came from an unknown source and stated there was an alert for a 7-year-old girl taken in Waverly, Tenn.

Brown wanted the public to disregard the information if they receive the Amber Alert message.

Authorities in Texas are coming under fire for not being quicker in issuing Amber Alerts for missing children. After an 11 year old Tyler, Texas girl went missing an Alert was not issued because it was deemed the girl was with someone she knew.

The criteria in Texas to issue an Amber Alert is similar to those recommended by the Justice Department, but adds a provision requiring that the child be "unwillingly taken from their environment without permission" of a parent or guardian.

Child advocates say the policy is too narrow.

"People who prey on children more often use seduction rather than ropes," said state Rep. Garnett Coleman, a Houston legislator who has focused on children’s issues.

Marilyn Ward, executive director of the Houston-based National Missing Children’s Center, said, "In this case, even if she went willingly, she’s 11 years old. An 11-year-old can be coerced to do all kinds of things, especially with an older man like that."

Although the Amber Alert program is coordinated by the U.S. Department of Justice, states are allowed to set their own procedures on how and when it should be used. Local law enforcement agencies can still issue regional and local Amber Alerts using their own criteria, but only the DPS alerts are displayed on electronic highway signs and with the National Weather Service.

Did you know that there is plenty of criteria that don’t allow for an Amber Alert to be issued? Now authorities in Kansas are becoming more proactive in helping find missing children that might not fit in the Amber Alert spectrum.

"The majority of your missing children cases do not fit the Amber criteria," Kent Bauman said. Bauman is an instructor for the ‘A Child is Missing Alert’ program. Nearly 60 law enforcement departments across the state are learning how and when to use an alternative alert system – to find both children and adults. Tuesday the training centered in Butler County.

Each agency sets its own criteria when to call the ‘A Child is Missing Alert’ program. A dispatcher at the Florida-based non-profit takes the information and maps out an area to call – at a rate of a thousand calls a minute.

Bauman says, "Runaways are a large category of missing children across the United States."

A recording tells homeowners and businesses the person’s name, description, location and asks them to look around outside.

Much has been made of the Google Street View feature in Google Maps, saying that it is an invasion of privacy, and in some cases even had photographs of children playing outside of their home making it accessible to child predators. Now comes a fantastic story out of Virginia of a nine year old girl who was abducted by her grandmother. Police using GPS from the child’s cell phone and Google Street View were able to determine that the girl and her grandmother were holed up in a particular hotel.

Using the street view, he was able to look back and forth from the intersection.

Looking across a field, he said he saw a long building with a red roof that looked like a motel. He then did a search on Google for motels in Natural Bridge and found the Budget Inn-Natural Bridge, which, on a map, appeared to be close to the intersection he was looking at.

The child is safe with Virginia Department of Social Services until she can be returned to her legal guardians.

If you are preparing for your first baby, you may be overwhelmed with everything you need to purchase. So many questions come to mind when it comes to what is safest for your child and yet easy on you as a parent. Here’s a great list of five important features to look for when buying a car seat:

• Reclining seats
• Five point harness
• Impact protection for the head
• Latch option
• Rear facing car seats

If you are a resident of Georgia and would like to keep up to date with any Amber Alerts or other child safety initiatives, KeepGeorgiaSafe.org has set up a phone system to alert you to the following alerts:

Keep Georgia Safe is the only organization to offer all three of Georgia’s Emergency Alert Calls free: Levi’s Call: Georgia’s AMBER Alert, Mattie’s Call, missing disabled or elderly person alert, and Kimberly’s Call, a dangerous fugitive alert. Keep Georgia Safe wireless subscribers receive these text alerts via their cell phone when issued by the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation). Subscribers will receive notification if and when an alert is cancelled. Our wireless network is free. Standard texting rates may apply pursuant to your own agreement with your cellular provider.

A quick trip to the site allows you to enter your cell phone number to be entered into their system to begin receiving alerts.

Amber Alerts in North Dakota will be getting more publicity soon as the North Dakota Transportation Department is installing more message signs along a few of the highways in the state.

The North Dakota Transportation Department is installing four electronic message signs along interstates 94 and 29 over the next couple of weeks.

The signs will be used to display motorist information including Amber Alerts for child abductions, road closures and travel advisories.

Two signs will be placed at Exit 161 along I-94 in Bismarck. The other two will be along I-29 near Pembina and the Canadian border.