Emergency services launch online education hub
Essex County Fire and Rescue Service and Essex Police have launched an online education hub to enable them to continue delivering safety lessons to children while schools are closed.
The two emergency services work collaboratively to deliver fire safety and crime prevention advice in lessons and assemblies for all school children from reception to sixth form and college.
Education Officers representing both services visit thousands of school children each year in Essex, something that has now stopped since schools have closed.
Essex County Fire and Rescue Service and Essex Police are committed to continuing to make Essex a safe place to live, work and travel, and the online education hub will enable children to continue to learn important safety lessons as part of the national curriculum during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Jo Turton, Chief Fire Officer / Chief Executive said:
“We know that safer children become safer adults and we’re committed to reaching our younger generations to help keep them safe now and in the future.
“Our Service has adapted quickly to the changing climate and we’re working hard to deliver our prevention and protection work in different ways so that no one misses out during this unprecedented time.
“We hope schools, families and communities can support us to learn and deliver valuable safety advice and ultimately, work together to keep each other safe.”
Andrea MacAlister, Head of Community Safety, said:
“With schools closed until further notice we’re all too aware that our usual role to visit students and deliver our safety messages could be missed.
“We knew we had to find alternative ways to reach our school children and ensure they still receive this vital information.
“As well as making the information available to anyone who wants it via our social media channels and website, we’ll work closely with our school contacts to ensure our full safety talks are sent out to pupils to watch as part of their home schooling.”
Roger Hirst, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, said:
“The joint education teams do a fantastic job, teaching our young people in schools.
“Now with some innovative thinking, that learning can still be delivered during these difficult times – education and preventing incidents from happening in the first place is the best way to keep people safe from harm.
“Thank you and well done to everyone who has been involved in setting this up.”
Assistant Chief Constable Paul Wells said:
“We work really closely with the fire service and other partners to help educate our children and young people about a whole range of issues to help keep them safe and well informed when making decisions.
“It’s really important we still do this while we’re temporarily unable to carry out our school visits and we hope children and their families will enjoy using the new online education hub as part of their learning.”
All of the educational resources can be found on Essex County Fire and Rescue’s website www.essex-fire.gov.uk/education
