Archive for the 'Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service' Category

Prince’s Trust Team Video Project

Published on 25 October 2010 in Emerging Technology, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Projects and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Over the past few weeks a Prince’s Trust Team, run through Bottle and Netherton Community Fire Station, have been using Flip Cameras to show what they have been doing. They have been capturing all aspects of their programme so far and have really got to grips with the small yet quality cameras.

The aim of the project is to produce one or more short films at the end of the 12 week programme to inform others about what Merseyside Side Fire and Rescue Service can offer. Next week one of the members of the team will spend his work experience placement with the Emerging Technology Officer at Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, editing and producing a short film. The short film he will be helping to produce will show the Team’s Community Project, an important part of the programme in which the Team work together on a project for and in the Community, in this case refurbishing a room within a Community Centre. This does not only involve manual work such as painting and maintained but a lot of work before hand selecting a project and fundraising. All the different aspects of the project will be shown on the film.

Once the film is finished it will be shown at the Teams final presentation night to show family, friends and professionals their achievements, as well as this it will also provide a useful and insightful promotional tool for the programme run from various locations within the Fire Service.  

Photo Sharing on Flickr

Published on 20 July 2010 in Emerging Technology, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Projects, Social Media and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service run several projects that engage and educate young people and provide an early intervention into anti-social behaviour. For example ‘LiveSafe’ is a programme aimed at educating primary school children in fire safety awareness and water safety. Not only do the LiveSafe team go into Primary schools during term time but they also run ‘treat days’ in non-term time as a reward for young people.

During event such as these our staff take photographs to remember the day and to promote their hard work. Very often the school, parents / carers and children also want these photographs to remember the day and to show others. In the past, staff have had to make a CD with all the photographs to send out to each school, proving costly and very time consuming, especially when some events involve a large number of schools. In order to overcome this, teams have started to use the photo sharing website; Flickr. Flickr allows our staff to create a group for the event and upload all the photos from the day, this folder can then be password protected. The schools, parents and young people can then log on to Flickr and enter the password given by our staff to download any of the photographs that they want – cost free! As long as every young person’s parent / carer has signed the consent form stating that images taken could be used on the internet.

This solution to a costly problem provides schools, parents, carers and young people a chance to obtain photographs of the day and share them with whoever they want.

Old Swan EARLY Update

Published on 14 July 2010 in Emerging Technology, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Projects, Social Media and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The Old Swan EARLY Team have now reached Week 10 of the 12 week Programme. The development each individual has made is astounding, and it is is excellent to see how they have each matured from the first day of the course.

This week the team are on individual work placements. Having spent the last ten weeks getting to know each other and forming a strong team, they are now out alone in a workplace.

The idea of doing this at the start of the course would have been inconceivable for many of the young people, however they have now all started their work experience and had excellent feedback so far.

The footage that I have collected is now mounting up ready to be cut and edited into a film to show at the presentation night in week twelve. I am being helped by a team member to sort through the footage we have, putting it into chronological order and deleting any unusable clips. The next step is to start editing and get ready for the big night!

CEOP urges Facebook to adopt Panic Button

Published on 13 April 2010 in E-Safety, Facebook, In the News, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service and Social Media. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The ongoing campaign for Facebook to adopt the CEOP Safety Button has been pursued further by Jim Gamble, CEOP director. This has come following the tragic death of 17 year old Ashleigh Hall who was murdered by a man she met on the social networking site. Jim Gamble met with Facebook creators in Washington to push the use of the Panic Button on every possible page.

As stated by the BBC: ‘Speaking after the four-hour meeting, Mr Gamble said Facebook was “one small step from doing the right thing” but had not agreed to his demands outright.’

It has however been recognised that they are looking to improve their position in child safety online. This will hopefully result in CEOP, Facebook and other social networking sites working together to tackle e-safety issues that give the internet a bad name.

In MFRS we have ensured that the correct e-safety provisions are in place by creating an E-Safety and an Acceptable Use Policy, as well as a Social Media Policy. There are five staff who have been trained to cascade ThinkUKnow training to all staff, particularly those who come into contact with children and young people who will then in turn be able to help, educate and advise Children and Young People about E-safety.

MFRS strongly believe that every effort must be made to safeguard children and young people when using new and emerging technologies, including social networking. Whilst we wish to make use of the potential engagement social networking enables with the public, we believe it is equally important to educate and inform on how to use the internet safely. By training the Youth Engagement staff to deliver the ThinkUKnow training, they will be able to use the presentation as part of the programmes that MFRS run such as Beacon, Prince’s Trust and EARLY. Furthermore they will be able to provide support for parents and carers and other staff.

Team 19’s final night

Published on 8 April 2010 in Emerging Technology, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Huyton Prince’s Trust Team 19 came to the end of their course last night when they had their final presentation. Having collated footage that had been taken over the course of their journey, I created a short video montage to try and capture the feelings and emotions of the young people whilst completing the programme.

The footage was heavily focused on showing the physical activities the team took part in, such as rafting and climbing, this enabled the audience to see exactly what the young people did and how challenging it was. However for the next team I would like to focus more on the personal journey of each team member, showing the transformation from day one to the end of the course. I would like to show the various parts of the programme including fire safety, community projects, work experience and how the young people feel at the end of each section. This will show exactly how the programme helps young people develop personally and professionally and how influential it is in shaping their future lives.

‘Get Into Reading’ Sessions at Greenbank

Published on 23 March 2010 in Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

After completing the Readers Organisation ‘Read to Lead Training’, myself and two colleagues are going to be delivering two sessions in the Easter Break. We are delivering the sessions to a group of young people from Greenbank Sports Academy.

The Greenbank Sports Academy is operated by Greenbank and is the North West’s leading sports and leisure facility for disabled people located in the Sefton Park area of Liverpool. They provide school holiday activities for disabled children aged 8 and above, their friends and siblings. Over Easter we have two, one hour sessions where we will use ‘The Savage’ as our reading material.

The difference between the Read to Lead sessions and normal reading groups is that the reading is shared. We, as the facilitators, will read the book aloud (members can choose to join in, but there’s no pressure to). This provides immediate engagement with the text, which is enriched by the spontaneous sharing of life stories and experiences as confidence builds.

Follow links for more information. Details of how our sessions go will be posted here soon.

Schools Parliament Consultation (2/2)

Published on 15 March 2010 in E-Safety, Emerging Technology, Facebook, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Social Media and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments

Last week I and two colleagues attended the second phase of the Liverpool Schools Parliament Consultation which took place in Liverpool Town Hall. The group was split into three rooms each holding thirty young people to allow the consultation to be more personal. We decided to asking the young people leading questions to generate conversation around the topics we were particularly interested in to get real responses and spark ideas. We felt that giving out a questionnaire or list of set yes or no questions would not only make them bored, but would not capture the true views and opinions of the young people.

Although we were hoping to split the group into three and each tackle a different subject we unable to do this so the three of us stood at the font and tried to keep a conversation flowing throughout the group.

Our main focus was around what online resource the young people wanted and felt would be useful, along with what makes them visit websites and the features, design and content they expect.

Out of the thirty young people in the room, none of them had ever visited the MFRS website, meaning that they were not even aware that there was a Youth section. When asked what else they knew about MFRS, apart from putting out fires, the only responses were fitting fire alarms and dealing with road and traffic accidents… and of course the usual rescuing cats out of tree’s line!

We then spoke about what websites the group use now, due to the wide age range the answers varied, most popular answers included Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Habbo Hotel, MiniClip, Wikipedia, Google and Bing. It was not surprising that the majority of their answers were social networking and free online gaming sites. Out of the thirty people only ten said they had a Facebook account, however this may be due to the age range of the group as others said they do use Habbo Hotel and Bebo, social networking sites aimed at younger children. All the CYP use MSN and some use MSN and Twitter. Interestingly, half of the group said they had covered e-safety in school but only some of them had changed their security settings after, others kept their profiles, including details and photographs, open not thinking they would be at risk. The top reason for using the internet was for chat and if they needed information the first place they would go is Wikipedia or a search engine such as Google or Bing.

Having got an idea of what resource the CYP are already using and how they spend their time on the internet we channelled in to what they believe we could do. We used A3 coloured screenshots to show them our website and the current ‘Youth’ page and also some examples of other websites aged at CYP including the BBC Bitesize and ThinkuKnow website. They liked the idea of the website being split up into age specific sections similar to the ThinkUKnow website for example Primary Schools (under 11’s), 11-15, and 16+. For the younger members of the group said that they are attracted to brighter colours and cartoons and characters. The older members said that they prefer more statistics and facts. The entire group however said that they would want interactive games linking to fire safety messages but that were fun.

It was suggested that unless there was a reason for them to visit the website they would not think to go, therefore it should be linked in with their curriculum, possibility PSHE lessons. This could cover fire safety messages and information of what the MFRS does. The most popular resources that the CYP suggested were virtual tours of Fire Stations and other areas of MFRS, detailed staff roles, careers information (not just fire-fighters), fire fighting games, statistics and case studies, live chat to staff, online application forms and information about activities open to them. They also talked about discussion boards where they could post up information or queries however when we spoke about this further they suggested that using Facebook for this would be better than trying to re-invent it. We should also make sure that pages are linked to other useful sites such as Connexions and schools and they are linked to us.

The consultation was invaluable and has given us a lot to think. It was excellent to see the CYP thinking out loud and watching how different ideas linked and led onto others. Although having a wide age range there meant it was hard to be specific about certain points it was extremely useful to see how the needs and opinions varied so much from those aged 11 to those aged 16.

Street Based Teams

Published on 10 March 2010 in Emerging Technology, Facebook, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Social Media and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments

MF&RS run a Street Based Team Project. This team engages with Young People in Liverpool signposting them to support/advisory and diversionary activities available within the community. They are looking for new ways to engage and inform the young people about the activities that are put in place, for example diversionary events around and on Bonfire Night. Having another form of engagement will allow the workers to continue supporting the Young People they meet after they have left the area and allows the Young People to contact the workers. This may be particularly useful if a Young Person does not feel comfortable asking the workers about an activity they are interested in, in front of their peers.

After meeting with the Project Coordinator we discussed using social media to connect with the Young People before, during and after the Street Based Team has been in the various areas. After hearing about the Police Officers using Twitter to keep their communities up to date with where they are patrolling and any important happenings or events, the team are keen to do something simular, inspired by the success of the Police. Using an instant feed such as Twitter or Facebook (or both!) will allow the workers to update the communities they are in about where they are, what they are doing and details of any activities or events or any safety messages or warnings.

Other ideas that we discussed included Bluetooth marketing. This is when a device pushes out Bluetooth messages to any mobile phone which has their Bluetooth enabled. The message can be text, images, video or audio. This has become a popular method of advertising on the high street, one example includes the public receiving a Bluetooth message when they walked near Pizza Hut, and the message would then enable them to receive a discount or an offer. Devices are also being used in combination with billboard advertising. With regards to the Street Based Teams, we discussed using these transmitters to send out messages to Young People when out on patrol to give out safety messages or details on where the team is or where an event is. They could be used during events as part of a game or offer incentives to help engagement with the Young People. There are endless scenarios where a transmitter could be used to push out messages containing various content to the public.

Schools Parliament Consultation (1/2)

Published on 5 March 2010 in E-Safety, Emerging Technology, Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service, Social Media and Youth Engagement. 0 Comments

Yesterday I attended the first of two consultation events with the Schools Parliament. 120 Children and Young People from Primary Schools around Liverpool came to the Town Hall to consult with myself and other organisations about health and safety.

Other delegates were from Liverpool Primary Care Trust, talking about obesity, Liverpool Safeguarding Board, talking mainly about bullying, and LifeStyles, talking about the free sports and activities for children around Liverpool. I focused my session on how MFRS can engage with young people through technology. This included giving out Fire Safety messages, allowing direct contact between us and them for queries and questions, giving out news and updates and informing CYP about the Fire and Rescue Service.

Only having 10-15 minutes I decided that the best strategy would be to ask the group a series of questions, some that everyone answers so I could get a percentage and some more specific where I would ask a selection of children their answers. I found that this worked well and despite the large group and small time frame I gained some valuable information that will help to develop our online resources and develop future initiatives.

Some of answers that stood involved all of the children having access to the internet in their houses and a shocking 83% had access in their bedrooms via various sources ranging from their televisions to wireless laptops. Even more surprisingly every single person put their hand-up when asked if they had Facebook; the maximum age these children could have been in 11 and the minimum age for Facebook is 13.

All the participants enjoy using the internet and especially playing games on the internet where they can chat to other people, when asked about which games they play popular responses were ‘Club Penguin’, ‘Habbo Hotel’ and even ‘Call of Duty’ – a war game which is rated an 18.

When asked about E-Safety a small number of the young people said they had learnt about E-Safety in school, I found this extremely surprising considering it was Safer Internet Day last month. When I enquired what they had learnt, only a couple raised their hands and were unsure about exact details.

Furthermore, in one of the other talks, one child even suggested that there should be a ‘Panic Button’ for children so that they can alert someone when they feel scared, bullied or unsure, they also suggested that there should be a way for parents to restrict what websites they have access to. One of the suggestions for a resource was a site where they could learn about E-Safety. All of these things exist and have been highly publicised by CEOP. I found it surprising that the children weren’t even aware of these resources and therefore parents were also not aware.

Their lack of knowledge about E-Safety and the resources that are already available for them together with their expansive experience on the internet; using social networking and games that open them up to the world from their bedrooms really opened my eyes to the work that still needs to be done on E-Safety.

Using these results and the information that I get from the consultation with secondary schools next week I plan to put an action plan in place to educate parents, carers, teacher and children and young people about safeguarding on the internet and the importance in doing so.

Putting a face to a name

Published on 2 March 2010 in Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service. 0 Comments

This week will see the start of a new initiative which will allow all MF&RS to put a face to the names of our Advocates.

MF&RS employ a wide range of Community Fire Safety Advocates to help achieve our aim of a fire safe community. Whilst our firefighters can carry out the majority of Home Risk Assessments there are communities and areas that require more resources and a targeted approach and as a result we have Bi-lingual Advocates, Older Persons Advocates, Disability Advocates, Arson Reduction Advocates, Deaf Advocates and District Advocates to assist with this work.

Although many staff know about the excellent results that this team achieve, a resource is needed to introduce each Advocate, their role and what they actually do. This will provide valuable information for other staff and allow resources such as Advocate knowledge to be used effectively.

Led by Franny Hill, a series a PodCasts will be produced. The PodCast will contain footage of each Advocate introducing themselves, details of their role and how they can be contacted. These PodCasts will then be embedded into the MF&RS intranet for all staff to access. If this is successful, more departments may wish to use this resource to showcase their staff and the resources that they have.