Firefighters from Red Watch, Amersham, were at the official launch of the scheme at Amersham Police Station.

19 March 2009

A new sticker-collecting scheme for children in the Chiltern District area gets under way next week. Chiltern CopCards, which stands for Community and partners, is a youth engagement scheme for Year 6 pupils (aged 11) aimed at encouraging young people to get involved in the local community and be more aware of their responsibilities.

Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service is working in partnership with many local agencies, including Thames Valley Police and Chiltern District Council, to promote the initiative.

Claire Young, our Community Safety Partnership Manager for Chiltern and South Bucks, said: “Each young person is given a CopCard booklet and the stickers are placed in the relevant place in this.

“There are 25 stickers to be collected. Stickers are earned by completing various tasks or challenges, or taking part in various events. For example, to get stickers, young people have to attend a sporting event, help in a community clean-up day, and learn about road safety. There are also some stickers which will be awarded to everyone in the class for attending certain lessons at school.”

One of the stickers is a fire safety sticker. In order to gain this sticker, there are a number of options for the children: 

• Complete a fire safety workbook
  
• A visit to their class from fire and rescue service staff
  
• Meeting fire and rescue service staff at a local event

Claire said: “The fire safety workbook is a stand-alone workbook consisting of exercises, puzzles and word games to educate young people about the importance of fire safety, in a fun way. It is available on the Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service website and hard-copies will be handed to schools.

“The fire safety sticker can also be collected if a class is visited by firefighters from its local fire station, or by talking to fire service staff at a local event, for example a car wash, open day or clean-up day.”

Community Safety Manager Terry Ridgley, said: “This is a fantastic way to get young people interested in their local community, and helping them to learn about responsibility in a fun way.”

The CopCards team is visiting schools in the Chiltern District area to explain the scheme, with stickers being available to collect from Monday 23 March until Tuesday 16 June.

The school class that collects the most stickers per pupil will win the main prize - a day out at LEGOLAND Windsor for the whole class. There will be lots of other school prizes, including a visit to the Thames Valley Police Museum, in addition to individual merit prizes - for example, for being the best team player.

To download a copy of the fire safety workbook, please click here to go to the Chiltern CopCard page of this website.