Local Intervention Fire Education (Life) Course

HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

COMMUNITY SAFETY AND CULTURE PANEL

WEDNESDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2009 AT 2.00 P.M.

LOCAL INTERVENTION FIRE EDUCATION (LIFE) COURSE

Report of the Chief Fire Officer

Author: AC David McClement, Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service

Tel: 01992 507590

1.Purpose of Report

This report is presented to inform Members of the aims and content of the LiFE courses run by the Fire and Rescue Service. The report also contains a report on the most up-to-date evaluation of the courses including the impact upon the attendees.

2. Summary

The LiFE scheme has now been in operation for over two years with 25 courses having been completed. This report examines the content of the course and the aims and objects including how the course's aims now have a far wider reach than was originally foreseen. Service's throughout the UK have struggled to evaluate community safety initiatives but the officers of the Service, in collaboration with partners, have now been able to carry out an evaluation of the effectiveness and impact of the scheme which is presented within this report.

3. Recommendations

The Panel is invited to note the content of this report and comment as appropriate.

4. Background

LiFE courses are one of a range of programmes used by Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) to interact with young people. Started in 2006 the course aims are to address firesetting and anti social behaviour by engaging young people on a five day work experience course that is tightly structured, well focused and conducted in a disciplined team environment.

Aimed at 13 to 19 year olds of both sexes, up to 16 participants attend and work with a minimum of one lead trainer and six trainers for a week at a Fire Service location. The ideal ratio is to have one trainer per two participants. Trainers are specially trained to understand the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) and ‘Every Child Matters’, and have the capacity to engage in the HCC Integrated Practice (IP) for children and young people.

More specifically the course is designed to change the attitudes and behaviour of identified disaffected or marginalised young people by getting them to:

Adopt a new set of values
Address the consequences of anti social behaviour, including fire setting
Work as a team member with others
See the advantages of improving their own learning and performance
Gain greater self esteem and confidence
Improve their communication skills

The main issues dealt with during the course are:

Anti social behaviour
Anger management
Conflict resolution
Gang related activity
Deliberate fire setting and hoax calls
Drug use
Vehicle crime
Sexual health
Healthy lifestyles
Volunteering to help others

To date, twenty five courses have been run in Hertfordshire with all ten Borough\District council areasbenefiting from the positive results achieved. (See evaluation data below).

5.Referrals

Young people are referred to the Service for inclusion on the course by key partner agencies rather than individuals. Some examples of these agencies are:

Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs),

Multi Agency Support Team (Mast)

Herts in Trust

Children’s Trust Partnership

Youth Connexions

Schools

Youth Offending Teams (YOTs)

Educational Support Units (ESUs)

Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs)

Housing Associations

Since the commencement of the LiFE Scheme 303 young people have started courses with 238 successfully completing the programme.

6.Funding

The Service provides an amount from its own Fire Prevention budget to support LiFE courses each year. Working in partnership with the other agencies we endeavour to secure, match or sometimes provide full funding to run courses. For this year (2009-10) we have been successful in achieving our target of running a minimum of one course per district (ten). As a result of this success with match funding we are currently exploring the possibility of running further courses that may be fully funded by the Service and targeted to a particular area of need.

7.Aims and Objectives

The original aim of the course was to reduce fires and arson, and engage with young people to ensure they understood the results of their actions. It very soon became clear that changing young people’s attitudes and behaviour for the better also had a huge number of benefits not only for the individual, but for a large number of agencies involved with them and society as a whole. From a Fire Service perspective, reducing accidental fires, fire setting and hoax calls saves us a great deal of time and money. For the community the outcomes can have a real positive affect on policing, education, social cohesion, anti social behaviour and the general feeling good about a neighbourhood.

On pure financial costs to the Fire Service, each time a fire appliance attends a call it costs hundreds of pounds (even a hoax call). Each time we attend a burned out stolen car or small shop fire it costs perhaps thousands of pounds to society in general. Each time we attend a major fire such as a school (e.g. Margaret Clitheroe, Hillmead and Veralum) it can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions and that is without counting the emotional damage to the individuals and local communities.

The running of LiFE courses has undoubtedly contributed to the impressive reduction in arson related incidents this Service has achieved over recent years, and also helped us to reach all of our LAA1 targets and gain performance reward grant for Herts Forward. We continue to receive very positive feedback on the contribution it has made to the young people’s lives and behaviour and therefore our level of partner agency’s contact with them.

Aside from our own Fire Service objectives to reduce fires, the course also supports the LAA2 targets of:

NI 17-Perceptions of anti social behaviour

NI 16-Serious inquisitive crime

NI 45-Young offenders engaged in suitable education, training or

employment

NI 56 -Obesity among primary age children in year 6

NI 69-Children who have experienced bullying

8.Costs

When the course was originally devised and set up the cost was in excess of £10k for each course. This provides dedicated trainers, a dedicated fire appliance to train with, a whole range of operational equipment such as ladders and hose, a temporary venue in the form of a Portacabin, full catering, personal protective equipment, uniforms, transport, training materials, etc. This year the Service has reviewed the ways of working and examined what could be made more efficient and has reduced that sum to under £8.5k.

The course provides very positive outcomes for the young people involved, and the savings to society in terms of reduction of arson and other crime, lessening of anti social behaviour and prevention of hoax calls can easily give weigh to the argument that the course represents good value for money and is cost effective.

9.Evaluation

To gauge the effectiveness of the course the Service uses ‘Quizdom’ a piece of software that provides course end, and post course evaluations. This is by means of a specifically designed questionnaire to compare the attitudes and behaviours of young people to the issues raised during the course and after the course. Questionnaires are led by the Youth Engagement manager and are strictly confidential.

Participants feedback.