SAPC Awards
Once again, towards the end of 2005, the Council invited nominations for its annual accident prevention awards scheme, which seeks to recognise those whose efforts during the year have been worthy of note. This year as part of the ongoing review of the way the Awards scheme has been organised it had been decided to judge each entry on merit and present them with either a Gold, Silver or Bronze level of achievement. The SAPC established criteria for entries to the awards that they should be accident prevention schemes that have been implemented in Scotland during 2005.
In total, 15 entries were received and, following the judging at the Executive Committee in March, and the entries received certificates with the following level of award:
Silver
- Aberdeen Safer Community Trust
- Fife Road Safety Team
Bronze
- Electric Blanket Testing (Perth & Kinross Council)
- Judith Merry (South Ayrshire Council)
- Elaine Gallagher (Central Scotland Police)
- Carolyne McDade (Central Scotland Police)
- Isabel Thomson (Central Scotland Police)
- Linda Robb (Central Scotland Police)
- Lorraine Robertson (Central Scotland Police)
- Ray Abercromby (Central Scotland Police)
The two entries that were awarded silver this year were Aberdeen Safer Community Trust
and Fife Road Safety Team. The details of these entries are:
Aberdeen Safer Community Trust arranged the Older & Wiser projects.
- The 2005 project focused on House hazards
- The structure of the event was a play which focused on fall but also covered fire, gas leaks, bogus callers and electrical safety
- Following the play a talk was given by Nichola McPherson on falls prevention
- The audience was given a goodie bag, which included safety devices and leaflets
- There were 282 participants and they evaluated the event as excellent or good
- Grampian Fire Service arranged 75 home fire safety visits following the event
Fife Road Safety Team introduced a new project aimed at Primary 7 pupils, who are over represented in casualty statistics
- Children are most at risk when they move from primary to secondary
- The staff went into the classroom and instead of talking gave than an exercise to do:
- The class was split into group of no more than 4
- They were given a map and asked to draw the route to the high school
- Some group were as pedestrians and some as cyclists
- They were asked what engineering steps could make the route safer
- Each group would present their findings
- Pupils are given support materials after the exercise
- There was a 50% reduction in accidents the following year
