The facts
Client:
Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
Location: Blackburn
Services: Road Safety Education
Sector: Road Safety
Start/Completion: 2005 - Ongoing
The project
Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs)
are ideally Year 5 children who raise awareness of road safety
issues within their school. This is done by assemblies, notice
board features and infant and junior competitions.
The children are provided with a resource pack
designed to give help and advise along with information on there
roles throughout their year. This pack also includes badges,
prizes and a scrapbook to document there work they do.
The project is run with help from an
‘in-school helper’; this can be either a member of school staff or
a parent. Capita Symonds' Casualty Reduction Team provide the
packs at the beginning of the school year and then visit the JRSOs
each term. There is always help on hand by email, letter, or
phone for any worries or concerns they might have from the
team.
The Casualty Reduction Team is responsible for
preparing the resource pack made up for each school. Our aim is to
raise awareness and therefore reduce child casualties, by learning
from their peers and taking on board local knowledge/issues in a
fun and engaging way. The team makes three termly
visits to support the children and in-school helper so as to
maintain interest and deal with any problems arising.
In 2006/07 three schools took part as a pilot,
in 2007/08 22 schools took part. We have confirmed 50% take up
from last year at this stage, the previous JRSOs have recruited
Year 4 children to take over and they have shadowed them prior to
the end of term. This should enable them to run with little
support from the Casualty Reduction Team and therefore help us to
concentrate on increasing the new school uptake.
Once a school has taken part then the
subsequent years can run with less input from Capita
Symonds and easier for the ‘in-school helper’ to support the
children.
We have listened to feedback from both the
‘in-school helper’ and JRSOs so as to address issues of new
resources and a handbook for the helper, along with a CD for
printable resources in school.
Collectively the JRSO from 2007/08 have
potentially raised awareness as follows:
- 22 schools taking
part, which equates to
- 55 JRSOs
- 66 Noticeboard
changes (1 for each term)
- 132 Junior &
Infant assemblies (potentially)
- 1,980 infant children
went home with a ‘Mothers Day Card’ giving a road safety
message
- 5,940 Infant
Competitions (on average)
- 7,920 Junior
Competitions (on average)