Local intervention Fire Education (LIFE)

LIFE is one of our most successful youth engagement programmes. The intensive five day course in which young people learn firefighting skills alongside real firefighters, has grown from a single borough initiative to a nationally acclaimed scheme.

What is involved

They are given personal responsibility for the management and maintenance of the fire engine, firefighting equipment, the fire station and their own personal protective equipment.

Each young person has their progress evaluated by a LiFE trainer, which allows for the planning of strategies to meet their needs and improve their life chances.

The young participants often treat the experience as a bit of fun at first but midway through the week they start to work as a team, developing leadership skills and having a more responsible attitude. This is because they are treated as adults, given adult responsibilities and often for the first time are placed in an adult to adult relationship.

The course is designed to change the attitude and behaviour of the young people by getting them to:

• adopt a new set of values
• address the consequences of antisocial (firesetting) behaviour
• work co-operatively with others
• see the advantage of improving their own learning and performance
• gain self-esteem and self confidence and
• communicate better and consequently achieve self empowerment

What the programme has achieved

LIFE has built an impressive list of achievements over the last three years (see below), and feedback from local firefighters, schools, youth groups, community organisations and youth offending teams has shown huge improvements in local relationships:

• 80% reduction in self-reported non-offending rate among participants six months after attending the programme
• 97% attendance rate on the programme
• noticeable reduction in attacks on firefighters
• noticeable reduction in deliberate firesetting behaviour in the boroughs where the programme is operating
• ten young people, some of who are from minority ethnic backgrounds, embarked on the fire service recruitment process
• two young men are now serving firefighters in their local communities
• features on its success on regional and national television programmes including London Tonight and Inside Crime
• LIFE has engaged with over 1,000 young people so far
• many young people who have been on the programme, have gone back into education or employment
• other brigades have implemented the programme, having seen the success of LIFE in London
• Ken Livingstone awarded the programme the London Day Fire Service Award in
• July 2003
• LIFE programme has been entered as a UK entry by the Government Office of London into the European Crime Prevention Awards 2005.

back to top