District elementary students soon will find out in the classroom that kidnapping, drugs, and other threats are not the number-one risks they face when the “Risk Watch” pilot program takes off later this month.
A comprehensive injury prevention program overseen by the Rainy River Valley Safety Coalition, “Risk Watch” will be tried out in 20 area classrooms this year in both the public and separate school boards.
“We believe that ‘Risk Watch’ will communicate good, basic safety information in a way that’s interesting to children and their families,” said Greg Allan of the Fort Frances Fire Department.
“And the program will certainly benefit from our coalition of local safety experts who have been working together to introduce ‘Risk Watch’ in the Rainy River District,” he added.
Allan, Ed Cain (teacher rep), Teresa Dennis (curriculum co-ordinator for the separate school board), Grace Silander (Fort Frances Ambulance), and Cst. Larry Hawkins (Atikokan Police Service) all serve as coalition members.
But district OPP officers, the Northwestern Health Unit, and various parent councils are integral to the program, as well as the local Kiwanis Club, Fort Frances Fire Brigade, Rainy River Fire Department, Voyageur Panel, Abitibi-Consolidated, Canadian Tire, and Gillons’ Insurance, who sponsored the resource materials needed to teach it.
“Risk Watch” will target the eight leading causes of injury for children–motor vehicle crashes; fires and burns; choking, suffocation, and strangulation; poisoning; falls; unintentional firearm accidents; bike and pedestrian hazards; and water hazards.
The curriculum, divided into five learning-level modules (pre-school through grade eight), is designed to involve children as active participants, not just as listeners.
Teachers will incorporate “Risk Watch” information into weekly lesson slots as part of the students’ regular health class time.
“I think it’s going to be wonderful,” enthused Cain, a grade three teacher at Huffman School here. “As a teacher, we should do everything we can do to help kids be safe at home because that’s where it’s most important.”
Cain noted although he thought all the components were vital to child safety, the unit on bike and traffic safety would be the most useful while kids were in school.
Dennis added it would be up to individual teachers as to exactly how they would incorporate the safety information into their course plans.
“It should be an interesting year–there’s a lot of flexibility in what can be done,” she remarked.
And the modules won’t end as stand-alone lessons. Participating teachers will track the success of the program using evaluation tools such as pre- and post-knowledge tests.
Participating schools include Sixth Street, Robert Moore, Huffman, Sturgeon Creek, J.W. Walker, Riverview, McCrosson-Tovell, St. Michael’s, St. Francis, and Our Lady of the Way.
The district “Risk Watch” coalition recently joined 14 other community teams at a symposium at the Ontario Fire College in Gravenhurst.
Over the three-day weekend, coalition members received the training, information, and materials needed to introduce the program to the district.
Allan said the whole program was introduced as a provincial endeavour meant to unify various public services for a common good.
“The Ontario Fire Marshal got us motivated to get it started, and we started getting into it more in depth,” he said. “We all thought it was worth pursuing.”
The “Risk Watch” pilot here will be completed by February, and may be carried on down the road if the evaluations are positive.
Developed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the “Risk Watch” curriculum gives children and their families the information and support they need to make positive, healthy choices about their personal safety and well-being.