Metropolitan Police Service and CSEF give 90,000 kids a lesson in citizenship

Howard Lake | 30 April 2007 | Newswire

Metropolitan Police Service and CSEF give 90,000 kids a lesson in citizenship
Citizenship is high on the agenda for the Children’s Safety Education Foundation (CSEF) and the Metropolitan Police Service, as they work in partnership to provide essential life lessons to 7-14 year olds across London.
CSEF has teamed up with the Metropolitan Police Service to launch a major initiative known as Junior Citizen, to provide school children with lessons in good citizenship and personal safety. Street-Vibe, part of the same partnership, supports safer schools in London by looking at key issues such as peer pressure, hate crime and bullying.
A key part of this initiative sees Police Officers providing children with the opportunity to take part in a series of real-life safety situations. Each child attending a Junior Citizen event is taken through a number of practical exercises that highlight hazardous situations, with experts delivering a number of safety messages in a fun and entertaining way to ensure the message hits home.
To support the Junior Citizen and Street-Vibe programmes, CSEF has assisted in the development and distribution of teaching materials that the Metropolitan Police Service aims to distribute to children in primary and secondary schools across the capital. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has praised CSEF’s aim to encourage children to think and make decisions independently.
Superintendent Mick Morris of the Metropolitan Police Service says: The very positive response from children, teachers, parents and Police Officers show that these activity books are an excellent resource for young people.”
CSEF has developed Junior Citizen to reach the more challenging and predominantly urban audience the Metropolitan Police Service are trying to reach. 40,000 Year 6 children benefit each year from it so far. Junior Citizen has been brought to 300,000 London school children while its sister project Street-Vibe has reached 100,000 school children since its inception in 2004.
John McNamee, Chief Executive of CSEF, said: Above all, the Junior Citizen events offer fun and enjoyable activities for young people to help them stay safe in London.”
The aim of the initiative is to raise awareness of the dangers of everyday life such as road safety, fire safety, water safety, railway safety and personal safety. Issues such as substance misuse, alcohol and smoking will be covered as well as first aid, hate crime, electrical safety and gas safety. Junior Citizen is a unique event that provides an opportunity to promote multi-agency working in the field of child safety education.
Co-ordinated by the Metropolitan Police Service, the events are supported by a large and diverse selection of agencies including the British Transport Police, London Fire Brigade, London Ambulance Service NHS Trust, British Red Cross, Local Borough Councils, Transport for London, London Underground, Network Rail, Trading Standards, Port of London Authority, EDF Energy, Healthy Schools, Park Rangers and Education Welfare.
To support the Children’s Safety Education Foundation call 0161 477 5122 or visit www.csef.net.
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For all media enquiries relating to CSEF, please contact Ricky (ri***@ko****.com) on 0161 237 9994.
Children’s Safety Education Foundation
Lord Street
Stockport
SK1 3NA
Registered Charity No: 1103344
The partnership between the Metropolitan Police Service and CSEF is managed by the MPS Events and Income Development Unit. The EIDU can be contacted by calling 020 7161 1230 or emailing sp*********@me*.uk

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.