Educating the Community at Sure Start

Written by Community Safety Advisor Apprentice Mike Dunn

Sam Blackburn and I have been getting out into the community across Manchester recently on a variety of different occasions. We both recently attended a Sure Start children’s centre in Rusholme to talk the new parents group during their introduction to the centre session.

The aim of the session was to give out home safety advice to the parents who were all scattered around a play room. We did this by talking to them and giving out information booklets on fire safety in the home, with the key message aimed at kitchen safety.

Every conversation started by introducing ourselves and asking if they had smoke alarms at home. If they didn’t, we advised they have a home safety check by signing a request form. We were also able to give out stickers and fluffy fire service bobble heads to keep the children happy and amused.

By the end of the session we had managed to collect a total of 22 Home safety check requests out of around thirty adults, which we felt was a really good success as there were clearly many parents without smoke alarms to protect them and their children. We completed several of them ourselves and sent the rest to our contact centre to have the visits arranged for convenient times.