The Schools Blog

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has announced a £1.6 million grant for practical safety education for children.

The grant will establish a Child Safety Education Coalition (CSEC) and was awarded to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) in partnership with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB).

The CSEC will work to improve the provision of practical safety education to give more children and young people the skills, knowledge and confidence to keep themselves safe in a range of situations, and so to help reduce the likelihood of injury or harm to children and young people. RoSPA and NCB will also work together to co-ordinate the distribution of safety education for children and young people from all backgrounds.

Practical safety education also offers children the opportunities to learn safe behaviours and respond to ‘hazards’ in a realistic environment, teaching them the skills to help keep themselves and their peers safe.

A key focus for CSEC will be vulnerable groups, for example children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are often at the highest risk of preventable accidents.

The Child Safety Education Coalition will be encouraging charities working in the area of children’s safety education to come together to co-ordinate and expand the provision of safety education activities, such as Crucial Crew, Junior Citizen and RoSPA’s Learning About Safety by Experiencing Risk (LASER) programme where children learn by experiencing a range of simulated risky scenarios. These types of hands-on safety education can be very beneficial for children.

Some of the issues CSEC will address are:

 Making safety education available throughout England, so more children can benefit.

 Nationally co-ordinating child safety education provision and distribute more evenly throughout the country.

 Making sure provision is targeted to ensure that vulnerable groups, who are more at risk from accidents, receive safety education (for example children from disadvantaged backgrounds).

 Evaluating existing provision of practical safety education across England, in order to measure its impact on children and young people’s safety knowledge.

Background notes:

The establishment of CSEC supports the delivery of Public Service Agreement (PSA) 13 – to improve children and young people’s safety.

• The grant covers three financial years 2008 – 2011.

• The total funding for the three years is £419,000, £600,000 and £600,000.

Tony Attwood - 01536 399 013