Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) register highest number of StayWise users, and urge other Blue Light organisations to follow their lead

In May 2024, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) adopted StayWise as its preferred source of fire, road and water safety prevention education for delivery to children and young people in schools and the community.

Within three months of launching the Service had achieved 369 StayWise registrations across Blue Light users, teachers and volunteers, and now GMFRS staff are delivering StayWise resources on all school visits and are working towards embedding it more widely within the community.

To date GMFRS have the most registered users within a Service area totalling 1567 downloads of educational resources with 85% of those downloads made by Blue Light users.

Area Manager Billy Fenwick, Head of Prevention at Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, said: “We began our StayWise journey by bringing together a group of our colleagues to form a task and finish group. The group enabled us to scope out an action plan, timescales, and what we would put in place to successfully adopt StayWise as our preferred resource library for all our educational resources.

“As part of the work, we consulted our delivery staff including operational crews who deliver in schools, and also teachers, to get their thoughts on StayWise and to seek feedback on any training requirements.

“We developed a guidance document for our staff to support them to use StayWise, particularly at school visits. To get staff on board, and ready to deliver, we launched a phased internal communications plan, including updates to our website and intranet pages, as well as articles in our internal and external newsletters.

“We also delivered a series of staff training sessions on Teams to over 900 staff. The one-hour sessions consisted of an introduction to StayWise and its benefits, how to register, login to and navigate StayWise and its resources.”

All of this enabled a successful launch last year and GMFRS staff have since been using StayWise resources, including a GMFRS bundle of lessons and lesson plans, to deliver on all school visits. Where possible, staff are encouraged to use StayWise for wider delivery of safety education in the community, across Greater Manchester.

Billy continued: “We are now working to promote StayWise to our partner organisations and educators in several ways; on our website, in our newsletter, at strategic meetings and by providing leaflets, stickers and pens at school visits, and community events. In addition, staff working at our Safety Centre (which hosts school and community visits) created a certificate of attendance for children and young people to take home. On the back of the certificate, is a QR code embedded with a direct link to the StayWise website to enable them and their parents to further explore the ever-evolving library of resources.

“Finally, our SPOCs met with StayWise leads to learn how we can continue to monitor and improve. A survey will be sent out to GMFRS delivery staff to enable us to capture feedback and address any issues and implement improvements to ensure GMFRS continue to effectively deliver fire, road and water safety prevention education materials to children and young people in schools and the community across Greater Manchester.”

StayWise is the National Fire Chiefs Council’s (NFCC) collaborative online safety education platform bringing together educational resources, developed to link to the national curriculum, of the UK emergency services and key charities/safety-focussed organisations.

All resources have been quality assured by teaching staff and designed to support teachers and community safety practitioners in delivering essential safety messages to children and young people in schools, at home, and in our communities.

The website offers free lesson plans, videos, and activity sheets to help educators teach children and young people potentially lifesaving advice within core curriculum subjects.  It means pupils can learn about fire safety in a maths or science lesson or write escape plan instructions, or information on how to keep safe in their community, as part of an English lesson. 

The StayWise website is easy to use – just select an age group, subject, or theme, and find a collection of educational resources to keep students busy.  Fire and rescue services across the country are encouraged to use the platform as their primary safety educational tool in their community work with schools and promote locally.

Funded by the Home Office, and all fire services in the UK, NFCC leads on the partnership behind StayWise. Partners include the Royal Life Saving Society, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, HM Coastguard, the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, the National Police Chiefs Council, and the Injury Minimisation Programme for Schools.

StayWise shows what can be achieved by combining the shared determination of the emergency services and safety focussed organisations, working towards reducing avoidable injuries and deaths within our communities. The organisations involved have worked together to provide these resources and are committed to the continued development of encouraging positive behaviour change in children and young people, while preparing safer generations for years to come.

FIRE Magazine

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