JFAIP - Childs PLAY
Child’s PLAY
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Child's Play article - from the September 2008 issue of Fire Risk Management (475.60 kb)
Authorities in the Australian state of Victoria are building on the success of an ongoing juvenile fire awareness and intervention initiative.
Murray Talbot and Julie Harris report
THE FASCINATION with fire among children and young people has the potential to develop into a dangerous interest in fire. So-called ‘fire play’ by youngsters can result from: a fascination or curiosity about the colour, light and energy released by flames; attention seeking; boredom; peer pressure; anger; revenge; and malicious damage. While some may be unaware of the consequences, others wilfully intend to cause damage – and this can represent significant risk and cost to individuals, their families and the broader community.
In Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria, statistics relating to fires in the metropolitan fire district during the 1980s showed that nearly one-quarter of fires reported annually were attributed to children and young people. In addition, the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne confirmed that a high number of admissions to its burns unit were attributed to children and young people engaged in fire play.
This prompted the Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board (MFB) – a community fire safety organisation in Melbourne – and RCH to develop an initiative in the 1990s to tackle the problem. Fifteen years on and that initiative, the Juvenile Fire Awareness and Intervention Programme (JFAIP), has produced very positive results and is now delivered by fire services across Australia.
Dual approach
Back when the project was originally developed, the MFB and RCH, working in collaboration, identified that a dual approach based on prevention and response was required. A broad education programme was needed to reduce the incidence of fire play among children by raising their awareness of the danger of fire and building an understanding of fire safety. A more specialised response – in the form of the JFAIP – was also required to address fire setting by children and young people who had already displayed such behaviour.
Fire play behaviour
The following are examples of individual children that the JFAIP seeks to help:
Russell is a nine-year-old boy who likes football, cricket and basketball and loves his dog Charlie. Identified as having learning difficulties, he lives with his mother and older sister. With a smoker in the household, his mother has caught Russell over several months lighting small fires in and around the home.
At five years of age, Katie’s mother is worried about her daughter’s fascination with fire. Behaviours identified by her mother include poking things into the fireplace and wanting aroma therapy candles in her room. She was recently caught burning pieces of paper in her play house.
Lachlan is a 15 year old with a history of aggressive behaviour and a diagnosis of attention deficit hypoactive disorder. He has been lighting fires on a regular basis over the last 12 months and recently set fire to grassland behind a vacant home, causing substantial property damage.
Operational firefighters were seen as being integral to the delivery of the initiative. While firefighters are commonly perceived as having purely an emergency response role, they actively engage with the community in a range of programmes. On a daily basis, firefighters work as educators, advisors and facilitators, both formally and informally, in addition to fulfilling their operational roles.
Utilising this capacity, it was determined that the JFAIP required:
• development of an intervention which could be delivered by trained firefighters to reduce the frequency of fire setting by children/young people with an established history of this behaviour
• training for firefighters to deliver the intervention to children/young people and their families
Pilot programme
Research methodology and a pilot programme were developed as a result of extensive consultation with the RCH Mental Health Unit. The central objective of the pilot programme was to effectively address the issue of juvenile fire setting and identify appropriate participants, as well as provide meaningful input to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of programme delivery.
Identification of pilot participants was achieved through screening conducted by RCH. While the very young may start fire accidentally in and around the home, they rarely intend to cause damage with fire. Peers, boredom and anger at society may motivate older children; they tend to light fires away from home and are more likely to experiment with explosives and aerosols. Those identified as being motivated predominantly by curiosity were also included.
Others, identified as having more destructive or planned behaviour, were referred for psychiatric and psychological assessment and RCH-based specialist treatment.
Both the pilot programme and the JFAIP that stemmed from it were based on a home-based intervention delivered by firefighters. This relied heavily on engaging the child/young person and their family to raise awareness of fire and fire safety through specially developed materials.
Results from the pilot showed that individual children who had been involved in an average of 7.1 fires in the previous year were involved in an average of 1.5 fires following intervention. This represented a significant reduction of risk to individuals and the community, and contributed to the establishment of JFAIP as an ongoing programme. In addition, the commitment of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority (CFA) in 1992 added a crucial state-wide capacity to delivery of the initiative. As programme partners, CFA is jointly responsible for co-delivery of the scheme in outer urban, rural and remote areas, as well as for programme maintenance and review.
Delivering the initiative
Children and young people aged from 4 to 17 years of age involved in fire play incidents are referred to JFAIP. This can be via parents, schools, police, acute burns units, courts and government-funded children and family services.
After initial contact is established, the firefighter visits the child and their family in their homes over a period of weeks to develop a rapport and working relationships with the child/young person and their parents or carers. Confidentiality and trust are essential, as is ensuring the process is free of recrimination.
Firefighters who deliver the programme are provided with comprehensive training. Topics and issues covered include the principles of child behaviour, child abuse, child safety, interviewing techniques, role playing and the principles of basic home fire safety.
The basis of JFAIP is raising the awareness of fire hazards and fire safety. To be effective, this requires programme flexibility in relation to content and delivery to address the age and maturity of the child/young person using specially developed materials. These materials include:
• Matches are not toys – a DVD aimed at 6 to 10 year olds
• a picture and text guide to identifying good and bad fires
• a heat, fuel and oxygen jigsaw
Creation of a safer home and community environment is strongly emphasised. This will often involve highlighting environmental factors which may provide the opportunity for fire play, such as cigarette lighters and matches left around the home. By engaging the whole family, both the child and family develop basic fire safety awareness.
Rewarding good fire behaviour is also established. The basis of this can include positive reinforcement through the identification of potential household hazards, such as matches and lighters left within easy reach, cooking left unattended, and combustible materials stored near heat sources. It can also include a reward system negotiated individually with each child/young person and their family, and close monitoring of behaviour to ensure change.
Post-intervention is also a feature of the programme. This is a lower level of contact with the child/young person and their family, offering continuity and reassurance of the interest of fire services in their progress over a 12 to 18- month period following the initial intervention. Parents and carers are also advised that they can contact fire services at any time if there is any reoccurrence of fire setting.
Major review
JFAIP has proved successful in reducing by 93% the number of children and young people who reoffend in the three-year period after participating in the programme. The scheme is now delivered across Australia by individual fire services in each state. This broadens the available resources developed in response to local demographics and the capacity to share knowledge and findings in relation to the programme. The initiative also operates in New Zealand and has generated interest from fire services internationally.
To build on this success, MFB and CFA are now engaged in a major review of JFAIP that will focus on:
• re-establishment of a steering committee to jointly manage all facets of administration, financial management, programme development, quality control a nd skill maintenance.
• development of a central database for fire services to access statistical information.
• quality assurance to ensure firefighters are up-to-date with new initiatives and delivering consistent messages through established and realistic key performance indicators.
• collaborative work between MFB and CFA to develop and refine training programmes and mentoring of participating firefighters and to ensure skills are maintained.
• development of closer strategic an.d working relationships and knowledge-sharing arrangements between MFB/ CFA and external organisations, such as mental health services, schools and police.
Combined, these strategies will strengthen the partnerships involved in the programme and ensure JFAIP is able to continuously improve practice. While training for JFAIP practitioners is comprehensive, the issues experienced by some children/young people and their families continue to remain outside the capacity of the programme to respond effectively. Children identified as experiencing socio-psychological issues, including those with behavioural-linked learning issues, are referred to specialist children’s mental health services.
Strategic alliances with specialist services will also be a high priority. The most significant of these will be with government agencies responsible for delivery of specialist services to children and families. The original JFAIP delivery paradigm of involvement with both child and family will be extended through partnerships at this level to build even greater capacity to improve ‘whole of family’ outcomes _
Murray Talbot is senior station officer and JFAIP state coordinator. Julie Harris is community ageing strategist with the MFB
Further information about the programme is available from the
JFAIP coordinator on e-mail: mtalbot@mfb.vic.gov.au