Thousands of people tune into Safe + Sound education programme during pandemic

Thousands of people have been tuning into an education programme provided by Staffordshire Fire and Rescue during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Figures show that just short of 45,000 devices signed in to watch one of our Safe + Sound videos between May and July and September and December last year.

Safe + Sound is the service’s mobile education programme which is usually delivered with the help of partners including Staffordshire Police, the Canal and River Trust, RNLI, St John Ambulance, DHL, HMB Training, Network Rail, Tamworth Borough Council and the Staffordshire Safe Roads Partnership.

Workshops – delivered to school children in years 5 and 6 – usually includes topics around fire, road, water, rail, internet and personal safety, emotional wellbeing, anti-social behaviour as well as drug and alcohol awareness.

Education Manager at Staffordshire Fire and Rescue, Helen Wood, said the way they work all had to change the pandemic started: “It was a difficult time when the lockdown started in March as we knew we had to come up with a way to still deliver our education service to local children.

“When on station delivery stopped we came up with the concept of delivering Safe + Sound online in the hope we could support families who were needing to educate their children at home.

“We planned on following a similar format to our current one and worked with partners to help them deliver their themed workshops around supporting local communities and improving health and wellbeing.

“The partnership work was superb and all those who could, produced and offered their material free of charge for a 12 week pilot programme via Learn Live. This was launched in May.

“After the initial success, the fire service committed funds for the provision of 40 weekly online programmes, plus four seasonal specials. These are still being used in both schools and at home.

“The number of devices tuning in per week is averaging over 1600, which means even more children and young people are tuning in where one device could be used by a full classroom. This doesn’t include our “On Demand” service which has seen 4820 devices tuning in at their leisure during these periods.

“This initiative has been a huge success and we are thrilled we, and our partners, can help keep delivering this education service during these unprecedented times.”

All programmes continue to be available on demand on the LearnLive website www.learnliveuk.com/safesound.