Agenda item

(Director of Communities) to consider the attached report.

The Community, Health and Wellbeing Manager, Gill Wallis introduced the report on the Crucial Crew initiative and its future. This was an annual event which was facilitated and delivered by the Council’s Community Service and Safety teams. It was specifically designed to educate primary school pupils aged 10 (year 6) in a range of personal safety, health and wellbeing topics.

Crucial Crew has been provided for over 10 years and was historically delivered over the same two week period in June, in line with agreed primary school timetables. This year every Year 6 primary school pupil in the Epping Forest District attended the half day events; in all 1351 Epping Forest pupils participated.  In addition 13 schools from the Brentwood area paid to attend, bringing a further 408 children into the project, making a total of 1759 attendees.

The  Community, Health and Wellbeing Manager made an amendment to the income table on the second page of their report. The income from the Brentwood Schools had been missed out, and a further £4,644 should have been included to bring the total up to £22,874.

The event has traditionally been held at Gilwell Park Scouting Headquarters; however, following recent notification of a planned increase in hire costs by approximately £2000 in 2016 it was decided that an alternative venue of Debden House would be piloted in 2016 for the same venue costs as 2015.

The Committee noted that the event holds a VIP morning, where in the past they had received the Lord High Sherriff of Essex and the current Chairman of the council to see what they did. Officers would like to open this up to all members so they can see the event in action. An invitation would be put in the Council Bulletin next year.

Councillor Mitchell asked about the expenditure of £80 listed in the report for refreshments, was this for the Children? She was told that it was for the staff. The children were told to bring their own packed lunch.

Councillor Neville noted that the vast majority of the income was not from EFDC, but from money officers had raised and he commended the amount of work they had carried out on this scheme.

Councillor Patel asked if they received any feedback from the schools taking part. He was told that officers did contact the schools after the event and asked for feedback which was invariably positive, with specific reference to the relevance and importance of the key messages delivered. They get them at just the right age, Year 6, just before they move up to secondary school.  Officers were now also looking at perhaps extending  this type of event by going into schools and talking to Year 8 pupils.

Councillor Surtees commented that for the money they produced an amazing amount of benefit for the children concerned. At the VIP event could they not invite some charities to view Crucial Crew in action and perhaps raise some more financial backing and maybe do more of these events in a year.

The Safer Communities Manager, Caroline Wiggins thanked the council for funding this event as a lot of other authorities did not fund things like this and noted that this was an important event for the children.

Councillor Brady asked if this was just for state schools and was told that it was inclusive for all types of schools.

Councillor Patel asked if they received any funding from Essex County Council. He was told that they did not as it was seen a multi authority event. They did however support the road safety events.

Councillor Patel then asked if children on alternative education programmes were catered for and was told that they were.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee noted the successes of the Crucial Crew initiative.