NATCHEZ &045;&045; Jena Smith is making Mississippi’s children safer one car seat at a time.

The Alcorn State University graduate nursing student has made child seat safety the focus of her graduate project and is already doing her part to educate parents on car seats.

Smith, a mother expecting her third child, said highway safety was something her father, a truck driver, instilled in her at an early age.

So when it came time to pick a project at ASU she didn’t have to look very far.

She became certified as a child safety seat technician and started sharing the proper safety information with patients at her nursing job at St. Dominic hospital in Jackson.

The plan was already in action &045;&045; all she had to was write it down &045;&045; when the chance for a national honor and a small grant came up.

At the prodding of an instructor, Smith applied for the Paul Ambrose Health Promotion Student Leadership Symposium. And got it.

She was one of 39 student leaders chosen, one of seven nurses, nationwide.

In June she traveled to Washington D.C. for the symposium where she heard from the U.S. surgeon general, among others.

The honor qualified her for a micro-grant of $250 to be applied to her project.

&uot;I’m planning on getting an interest group started at my school,&uot; Smith said of the grant money. &uot;I want to expand the project and try to get other people on board to support the project.&uot;

Smith is the child seat safety coordinator with Mississippi Safe Kids and works with the C.H.A.N.C.E. project, Children Have A Need for Car seat Education.

She teaches car seat safety classes at St. Dominic and wants to expand the project to more state hospitals.

&uot;There is a 95 to 99 percent misuse rate,&uot; she said.

&uot;Most people who think they are putting their child in properly are not. There is a huge knowledge deficiency. I’d like to go statewide.&uot;

Smith, already a nurse, studying to be a family nurse practitioner, has a year left at ASU. She is in school part-time now and lives in Crystal Springs.

She has been a nurse for 10 years and has worked at St. Dominic for a year.