Crucial Crew Stockport

CRUCIAL CREW – STOCKPORT

Following a donation by the Group of £1000 the Chairman and Treasurer received an invite to attend an Open Day on 12 March.

Over the 12 years the event has been running over 20,000 children have enjoyed the experience.

The event is run for three weeks (7 – 29 March) by Stockport Council with multi agency support and approximately 2200 year 6 (10-11 year olds) children attend the 2 hour sessions.

Aimed at 10 and 11 year olds, who are soon to transfer from primary to secondary school and growing more independent, the event covers issues of safety, responsibility and citizenship. These children will be experiencing a whole range of new situations.

Crucial Crew gives them an opportunity to develop confidence in their ability to deal with the threats and dangers they may come across.

On arrival, after a short introduction the children are divided up into 8 colour groups each with an adult escort. They then circulate around the various sections (as listed below) before reassembling for a final debrief.

GM Fire and Rescue Service – Basic instructions about causes of fire, how to make an emergency call and escape from the home. This includes practical tests.

Stockport NHS Primary Care Trust School Nurses - Advice on a variety of medical issues like alcohol and smoking.

NW Ambulance Service – Basic first aid, recovery position and DRSAB rules, Danger, Response, Shout for help, Airway, Breathing – Recovery position.

Environmental Health and Trading Standards – Advice on what they can and cannot purchase at various ages, e.g. glue, fireworks, cigarettes, etc

GM Police – General issues plus incident reporting, identifying and witnessing a street robbery and being able to describe the thief.

British Transport Police – Various railway scenarios and questions to be answered about electrics, trespassing and platform safety, etc.

Stockport Women’s Aid – Discussions about domestic physical and mental abuse.

Stockport Council Road Safety Unit – Road and cycle safety, scene setting and team quiz.

The Open Day was attended by the Mayor and Mayoress of Stockport, Councillor Peter Burns and his wife Margaret, as well as other distinguished guests from partners.

Our donation is used towards the costs of transporting the children to and from the participating schools arranged by Freshfields Coaches. The whole event is very well organised by Stuart Green from Stockport Environmental Health Department with support from the Council and the TA who allow use of the barracks Drill Hall at the Armoury, Greek Street during the event. A very worthwhile exercise, a pleasure to see the children being given an excellent grounding to Health and Safety at an early and impressionable age.

Stockport primary schools rate Crucial Crew very highly and consider the experience an essential part of children’s education. Teachers described last year’s events as ‘a fantastic, well organised event’ and ‘a very valuable experience’.

In the past children have been known to evacuate their families safely in the event of a fire or ably describe an incident and those involved resulting in arrests, all of this being directly attributable to attending a Crucial Crew event.

We hope to invite one of the agencies or organizers to make a short presentation at one of our meetings.

M Nixon