Free educational toolkit to help children prepare for emergencies

A new toolkit with lesson plans designed for Key Stage 2 pupils is helping children to prepare for emergencies and build resilience.

The Schools Community Resilience Project was launched recently by the Lancashire Resilience Forum, after Blackburn school Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School helped to test it.

And the idea for the toolkit came from Sarah Riley who is the manager of Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Civil Contingencies team.

Sarah had the idea for the Schools Community Resilience Project during research for her PGCert qualification. Her work highlighted the importance of schools having structured, multi-agency lesson plans covering a variety of emergency-related topics.

Sarah Riley commented:

At a time when emergency services were facing significant cut-backs, we saw this as a valuable way to help schools support pupils in becoming more self‑reliant, while also encouraging families to think about how they would respond in a crisis.

With the co-ordination now provided through the Lancashire Resilience Forum, I’m confident this refreshed toolkit will be a real asset for schools and youth groups across the county. My hope is that it continues to grow, gains national recognition as an example of good practice, and eventually develops into a resource for secondary schools too.

Following its successful trial, the toolkit is being rolled out for the use in primary schools across Lancashire. Its adaptable design also makes it suitable for use by different youth organisations.

Councillor Julie Gunn, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said:

Ensuring children and families know how to prepare for and recover from emergencies is a vital part of building community resilience, and this new toolkit is a really powerful tool for building children’s confidence and sparking important conversations at home.

It covers things like having a ‘grab bag’ stocked with essentials in an emergency, the roles of the various emergency services and roleplay 999 calls.

The toolkit supports the PSHE curriculum, encourages critical thinking and helps children understand how to keep themselves and others safe.

While designed primarily for schools, we’re keen to share it with other young people’s groups – like cubs, brownies, madrassahs, and other youth clubs –  to help even more children learn about how to prepare for, and respond to, an emergency.

The Schools Community Resilience Project toolkit, which has been endorsed by the University of Wolverhampton, provides six flexible lesson plans. While aimed at pupils in Years 3 to 6, it can be adapted for different age groups.

The free to use toolkit can be downloaded at: https://www.lancashireprepared.org.uk/protect-your-community/schools-community-resilience-project