WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) In an effort to save young lives, the KIDS (Kids Infant Death and SIDS) Network focuses on sleep awareness, helping care givers know all about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and what can be done to help prevent it.

The group held a training seminar Friday to help make sure that everyone who works with babies knows all about safe sleep awareness. Among the stories highlighting the effort is that of Jalen Carter and Sonnie Williams.

The couple Friday shared their story with healthcare providers, health departments and social workers about their son, Harlem.

“He was five months old. He just passed away in his sleep,” Williams says.

Carter says he and Williams want to make sure that their son lives on through the story and how it can help others.

“We want to make sure we can share our story with someone else that will help. We want to do that,” he says.

Carter and Williams’ story is just one participants heard at the KIDS Network Safe Sleep Instructor Training. It’s a two-day session held by the Kids Network to help those who work with families get trained on safe sleep guidelines for infants.

“We want to make sure people are doing alone, back, clutter-free crib. We want same room, but separate bed than parents,” says Christy Schunn with the Kids Network about how infants should sleep.

Schunn, the executive director for KIDS Network, says the organization is trying to change people’s behavior when it comes to putting babies to sleep.

“We want to give them the education and the knowledge and the words to use so we can treat our clients and our patients with dignity and respect,” Schunn says.

The most recent report from the Kansas State Death Review Board says 75 percent of sleep-related deaths happen in an unsafe sleep location and the deaths could have been prevented if the baby was in a safe sleep environment, like a portable crib.

“Twenty seven of 48 babies that died in 2016 of crib-related deaths occurred in the adult bed,” Schunn says.

Schunn says she hopes the KIDS Network Safe Sleep Instructor Training will help bring those numbers down.

The KIDS Network has two Safe Sleep Community Baby Showers coming up next month, the first from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Oct. 12 at the South Central Boys and Girls Club, 2400 N. Opportunity Drive, in Wichita, and the second from 9 to 11 a.m. Oct. 19 at Wichita North High School, 1437 N. Rochester St.