Project Flame Out is a project formed to tackle a community need in the Bellshill Area. The initiative, funded by the Community Safety Sub Group (CSSG) in Bellshill through the Local Development Programme budget, was a means of tackling a real community safety need that was using up valuable resources from NLC and partner agencies such as Fire & Rescue, Police Scotland and NHS Lanarkshire.
Wheelie Bin and secondary fires in general had become an increasing problem and intelligence pointed to mainly young people from 10-18 as being the main perpetrators of the thefts/fires.
The CSSG decided to engage with two local groups of young people to see if a peer education approach would be the best medium to tackle the issue. Peer Education is a proven method of young people dealing with young people’s problems that can benefit the wider community.
Key Activities
The group, made up of S5 pupils from Bellshill Academy, Cardinal Newman High School and the Bellshill Youth Forum, have worked in partnership with Scottish Fire and Rescue, Police Scotland and others from the community to develop a learning pack that they delivered to local school children from P6 to S6, as well as local youth and community groups.
The project uses a mixture of oral and video sessions (made and produced by the group) to get an important message across to their peers. The project is already seeing a positive response from young people with wheelie bin fires reduced and an increased level of successful pupil engagement.
Benefits and Impact
The main benefits have been widespread. There have been financial savings for partners and we have witnessed the young people delivering this project taking real ownership of the methods for solution. This has led to positive outcomes for the new approach as well as ensuring personal development for those delivering the training intervention. The peer approach has been well received and has led to more young people being willing to be involved in the delivery of the training.
Learning
Adopting a peer approach to delivering this project has proved to be a highly successful method of service delivery. This has had a very positive impact on delivering the training and on promoting positive outcomes.
To find out more about this case study, please contact
Matt Costello
Local Regeneration Manager
North Lanarkshire Council
costellom@northlan.gov.uk
01698 820508