Keeping emergency workers safe in their workplace is a challenge posed to all fire services. Incidents of attacks and other anti-social behaviour on personnel carrying out life-saving roles is shocking and an unacceptable part of the job. It’s an issue Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service set about tackling a number of years ago, together with other anti-social behaviour problems such as hoax calls and deliberate fire setting. It has adopted a wide and ever increasing range of independently evaluated programmes and initiatives. These projects have not only benefited the Fire Service but also had a massive impact on the wider community in reducing anti-social behaviour, reducing unemployment
and improving significantly children and young people’s life chances.

The service produced a Violence at Work Strategy in 2005. As part of that, it developed a proactive reporting policy, encouraging crews to report any attack in work - no matter how small or what form it takes. This has obviously seen an increase in the number of reported incidents, which can give a negative public perception. But it is helping the Service to identify where hot spot areas are and target
resources where crews need it most.

CCTV has been introduced onto frontline fire appliances in a bid to detect and deter people carrying out attacks on firefighters. It was first introduced in 2005 on appliances at Old Swan Community Fire Station and proved successful, with positive feedback from crews indicating that acts of violence towards them had reduced. Now all water tenders on Merseyside have CCTV fitted (three fixed cameras and one that is swivel-mounted) with the ability to record 25 hours of continuous footage.

MF&RS is also introducing swab kits that can assess DNA to identify offenders. Crews and other personnel, such as the community safety advocates, are to be trained in how to use them effectively if they are assaulted. The kits contain a pair of sterile latex gloves, a collection bag and two sterile swabs to remove the sample from the skin. They have already been introduced successfully in other organisations across the country including bus and rail providers and car park attendants.

As a Deputy Chief Fire Officer for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Mike Hagen has seen many attacks on other fire officers including himself. He said: “We take the safety of our crews very seriously. It is a very sad fact that they come under attack from members of the public, particularly young people. We have put a series of measures in place that are helping to identify those mindless individuals who take part in this sort of behaviour and we are also finding these initiatives are acting as a strong deterrent.”

Alongside tools to help detect and identify people attacking crews, MF&RS took the bold step of trying to stop attacks and other ASB happening in the first place by working with potential offenders. Most of the attacks in Merseyside, like the rest of the country, are carried out by young people so this became a feature of a groundbreaking programme of youth engagement.

The University of Liverpool’s Centre for Investigative Psychology carried out research into the issue. One of their findings was that young people do not see firefighters as real people. Natalia Wentink, from the Department of Psychology, explains: “We got a group of kids together and spoke to them about attacks on firefighters and fire-related anti-social behaviour. A lot felt that the attacks were about this anonymous figure in a uniform.”

MF&RS set about changing this by engaging with as many young people as possible so they could see the ‘face behind the mask’. The Service works with young offenders, the unemployed, fire starters and children excluded from school. It has set up climbing walls on fire stations; organised soccer skills camps in areas of city centre deprivation; run fitness classes; and facilitated healthy eating classes to reduce obesity. It uses fire investigation dogs to engage with young people about the dangers of fire; operates
the Prince’s Trust team programme to help unemployed young people into work, training or education (and are successful with over 81% doing so within 12 weeks of being with the Fire Service); runs youth teams on fire stations; and is developing work with the Duke of Edinburgh scheme.

Mike Hagen added: “The Fire Service possesses good core values which are of enormous benefit to the children and young people that we work with. Much of this work concentrates on raising self esteem, improving team work, communication skills and developing the young people’s conflict management skills. By exposing the children and young people to positive role models, they develop a heightened sense of responsibility both to themselves and the communities in which they live and they begin to
understand the consequenes of their behaviour. They get to see the face behind the mask of a firefighter which makes a big impact in reducing the incidents of violent attacks.”

There are now more than 25 youth schemes run by MF&RS across Merseyside, bringing thousands of young people into contact with staff. Last year the Service was given Beacon Status award for its work with young people which means it is sharing its own experiences and learning from others. This can only be a good thing for the future and will hopefully lead to further initiatives and measures to reduce the Anti Social Behaviour in the future.