Eccles Prince’s Trust Team Smarten up Westwood Smarties!!

Written by John Cullen - Prince's Trust Team member, age 19

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service has been working in partnership with City West Housing Trust (CWHT) to run a Prince’s Trust Team in Eccles. This is the first time GMFRS and CWHT have worked together to run a Prince’s Trust programme and the first time there has been a team like this in Eccles.

Eccles Team 1 are a group of 12 young people aged between 16 and 24. We have been completing a two week community project at Westwood Smarties in Winton. Westwood Smarties is a local nursery for toddlers who are from the Winton estate and surrounding neighbourhood.

We chose to complete the project at the nursery because they receive no government funding and it doesn’t cost very much to send your child there. I have lived in Winton most of my life and thought it would be good to give something back to my local community.

Angela Sands, the Team leader for the programme, said: "The team has worked tirelessly to renovate and clean up the run down nursery garden. They have been digging, painting and creating a mural for the children.

"They have been wood chipping an area and creating a vegetable patch so the children can learn about growing potatoes and carrots. All of the team members are here to learn new skills, gain confidence and try to gain employment and skills for life."

The murial completed by the team	Stepping stones were added

GMFRS has been running Prince’s Trust programmes in Greater Manchester for over 10 years and has helped hundreds of young people to gain further qualifications and jobs. GMFRS is also working to offer future employment opportunities for Prince’s Trust team members.

We have been fundraising for the project, by bag packing at a local ASDA supermarket, holding a cake sale, name the teddy competition and a raffle. In total we raised more than £600 for the project.

We want to show that good things can happen in our local community of the Salford West area and Eccles, despite the recent sad events currently being shown in the media. The young people who live in this area aren’t all criminals and vandals - we can make a difference, and the local community has been really supportive of our project - we have received donations from City West, Salford City Reds, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, B&Q and Wilkinsons. Lots of local businesses have also helped raise funds and donated prizes for our raffle.

Eccles Station Manager Paul Smitham said: "It's fantastic that the community of Winton has a lovely new nursery garden and that is down to the hard work and teamwork of these inspiring young people.

"It's wonderful to be working in partnership with City West to run the scheme at Eccles Community Fire Station and offer this opportunity to young people in the area for the first time."

Written by John Cullen - Team member, age 19
For further info contact our Team leader Angela Sands on 07854494816 or sandsa@manchesterfire.gov.uk

Fire Safety at Adults Learning Disability Event

Written by Apprentice CSA Chris Toon

GMFRS was given the chance to help at an event last week for one of our more vulnerable groups within our society, which was one of four to be run across Greater Manchester throughout the year for adults with learning disabilities.

Trafford Community Learning Disability Team held the event for adults with learning disabilities and their carers. The event was held at Partington community centre from 10am late into the afternoon in an effort to raise awareness of the issues many people with disabilities face and also to provide them with information and safety advice to help them in their daily lives.

There were various stalls and activities set up in the room including free fruit smoothies, healthy eating advice, getting your blood pressure checked by the NHS nurses, dental care advice, a stall from Mencap, information from Greater Manchester Police around hate crimes and Fire Safety from ourselves.

We brought a lot of equipment with us to suit the various needs of some of the attendees. We brought our projector which played two videos on a loop for the audience throughout the day. The first was an adapted version to our Fire Safety in the Home presentation while the second was a fire safety video made with and starring several individuals with disabilities themselves, so was easier to relate to for the audience.

We also brought photos of our firefighters in action to give a visual representation of what they do and how they work. We had laminated versions of Spot the Hazard which many of our visitors got involved in as well as our interactive house on the wall where people can stick up the cut out smoke alarms and fires and place them where they thought best. This also allowed us to practice escape routes so the individual could learn the best route out of a fire.

We also brought some smoke cubes with us so that people there were able to get an idea of what it smelled like to be in a fire in preparation in case it should ever happen to them so they know what to expect. We had to wrap them up in several carrier bags over and over as they started to make the whole room smell of smoke!

It was a great event overall and we managed to educate a lot of people about fire safety and helped learn how to spot hazards in their own home. There will be future events coming up later in the year around Manchester and hopefully we will be able to keep supporting this great event and sharing our safety messages with the public.

GMFRS get Apprentices on the road!

Written by Apprentice CSA Chris Toon

As an organisation, GMFRS has provided us with help and support in order to become the first apprentices they have ever taken on.

Within our role we have each been given our own boroughs to cover, each with its own issues and problems to look at and deal with. We have risen to this challenge over the past eight months and we are now dealing with our own jobs and projects. The one thing that has stood in our way and made things difficult to work on our own was the inability to be able to drive.

Fortunately, this has been noticed and GMFRS has now taken the initiative to help their apprentices with their driving lessons. We have just started working with Latics driving school in order to get our apprentices the skills needed to be driving our company vehicles on the roads.

Several of our apprentices who were eligible to drive but had not started yet have since been given the option to start lessons provided by the organisation. These lessons will last for whatever the required period for each apprentice to ensure the GMFRS is happy to send us out into the public in its vehicles in order to deliver our messages.

One of our Apprentices, Christian Krebs stated: "My whole experience with Latics has been really good. The driving instructor is really friendly and explained everything very well. My overall experience has been good and I would recommend them to others."

The option taken by the organisation to support these young individuals in this area shows the willingness and forward thinking they are putting into their youth engagement programs and will help us to reach a wider audience with our work.

Community Safety Team Leader for Salford Borough Stephanie Walters said: "The apprentices have been able to provide additional assistance to the Community safety Team in order to support them in delivering their prevention initiatives. This has allowed our team to become more efficient as we are able to cover a bigger work load. We are looking forward to seeing them driving so they are able to continue setting up and delivering their own projects and really show how much they have learned and developed since joining our team."

The experience so far with Latics has been a very successful one due to the helpful nature of the staff and patience shown with our new drivers. Hopefully this programme will continue into the future to help any future apprentices show fully how much they can bring to the organisation.

We are now just looking forward to watching our apprentices get out in the community and really start being able to help make a difference in delivering our fire prevention messages.