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8 August 2024
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Featured FRI Magazine article: Evidence based fire prevention programme targeting high risk communities by Rodney Eksteen (FRI Vol 2 no 7)
The burn injury problem in South Africa is relatively unique and certainly very different to the US
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Madiba joined in at one of the events
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As burns had a higher prevalence in the very young and very old, three to five-year olds were identified as the priority
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The development of fire and injury prevention messages provides direction and increases awareness of the problem
Map 1: Global fire related death rates
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LNTB Curriculum implemented in Gauteng
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https://www.frimedia.org/uploads/1/2/2/7/122743954/fri_vol2no7_lr.pdf
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Evidence based fire prevention programme targeting high risk communities written by Rodney Eksteen (FRI Vol 2 no 7). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Evidence based fire prevention programme targeting high risk communities
By Rodney Eksteen
Each year, 25 million more people are living in slums and informal settlements (UNHABITAT, 2010). Fire risks are increasing due to high density building, new construction materials, more high-rise buildings and greater use of energy in concentrated areas (UNISDR, 2010). There are over 300 000 fire-related deaths per year (Mock et al, 2008), with over 95 percent of all burn deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). According to the Integrated Strategic Framework for the Prevention of Injury and Violence in South Africa, (DoH, 2012), the fire-related burn death rate in South Africa of 8,5 per 100 000, is greater than the world average of five per 100 000, and the African region of six per 100 000. In addition, the overall cost of insured property loss due to fire is estimated to cost the economy more than three billion Rand every year (Wood, 2013).
Although natural disasters cannot always be avoided, accidents or un-intentional burns are preventable (Bishara et al, 2009, Peck et al, 2009). Successful community-based fire prevention programmes have been implemented internationally and have helped to lower the risk of fire related death and injury and improve resilience in these communities. In South Africa, there is a need for evidence based community fire prevention programmes targeting the specific high-risk communities.
The aim of this article is to describe the process and collaborative approach that resulted in the design, development and implementation of a comprehensive fire and burn prevention programme, targeting vulnerable populations using local fire and burn risk data. The Learn Not to Burn® preschool programme South Africa, draws on international best practices to equip children, families and educators with the knowledge and skills to protect themselves from fire and burns and aims to impact on the reduction fire related risks within poor and high risk communities.
Each community is different, disaster and injury causes need to be determined and the demographics of the community need to be understood if we ever intend on having an impact on risk reduction and injury prevention. Having said this, it often becomes a daunting and overwhelming task to decide what to tackle first and how. Fire and burns are a social and economic, as well as a behavioural issue. Long term, sustainable change can be achieved by building little successes and by starting with those most at risk.
Unfortunately, for the most part, many disaster and fire prevention practitioners still provide prevention messages based on what we ‘think’ the public should know and in a way that we feel should apply to everyone, the so called ‘one size fits all’ approach.
It’s easy to simply take a predeveloped fire prevention programme and implement it ‘as is’ in any and every community. Risk reduction and fire prevention programmes are often neatly packaged and visually stunning. Unfortunately there are very little, if any, variations or information on customising programmes to suite different communities, cultures and specific needs.
Organisations that have large and diverse populations often have problems focussing on specific communities at risk or areas where certain injuries are more prevalent. It is imperative to focus on the greatest risk or injury cause in a given community as the injury profile will differ from community to community. Unfortunately, with limited resources, time and know how, many organisations end up implementing the ‘shotgun approach’ and provide fire and injury prevention education on issues which may not be a leading cause of mortality or morbidity (death and injury) in a given community. Resources and know-how are even less when it is necessary to modify or customise an existing programme, or even developing one from scratch, to suite a specific community need.
The development of fire and injury prevention messages provides direction and increases awareness of the problem, not to mention the focus on changing people’s behaviours. Prevention messages that have been developed can also serve as the core for slogans, advertisements, written materials etc, even if just creating awareness around the need for education. In South Africa, the development of the public information, education and relations (PIER) system in early 2000, has helped to do just that. From a situation of very poor support and emphasis on fire safety education to a situation where there is national support and awareness of the problem.
This, in part, was achieved by pushing information through any means to the public but also Government officials and decision-makers. Catchy phrases and slogans seized by these officials as well as the media and the positive publicity it generated, created awareness and support for these programmes. We now have a situation where many fire departments and related agencies have full time fire and life safety educators and there is national support for curriculum development and careers in this field. Many of these messages are now being utilised by various organisations, some to even advertise safety products. Messages that have been developed for children are often just as effective on adults.
What follows is a brief description of a process that may be utilised to develop focussed messages for a fire prevention programme targeting a specific audience. The examples used refer to a programme that was developed with the support and assistance from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and various risk reduction organisations in South Africa.
First things first
South Africa has the third highest burn injury rate in the world. Burn injury was most certainly an obvious place to start when deciding what injury issue to focus on. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Centre for High-Risk Outreach supported the adaptation of the NFPA’s Learn Not to Burn® (LNTB) preschool program for use across South Africa. Created in 1979, this programme has been used successfully in more than 50 000 classrooms world-wide.
In locations where it has been adopted, the lessons remembered by children have saved hundreds of lives. The Learn Not To Burn curriculum has been used in South Africa for approximately a decade. But we were not sure if the messages in the curriculum were completely suitable for the burn risks and common causal factors in South Africa. We also had, in many cases, very different cultures, languages and environmental influences. Therefore the first step of our approach was to determine the extent and causes of burns in South Africa.
Identification of risk factors and causes
Various organisations and experts where invited to form a coalition from the fire and emergency services, the Paraffin Safety Association, the Child Accident Prevention Foundation, the Medical Research Council, the Working on Fire programme and the Institute of Social and Health Sciences. The NFPA sent two injury prevention experts, Kwame Cooper from the Los Angeles Fire Department and Ernest Grant from the Jaycee Burn Centre in North Carolina to lead and direct the initial workshop in 2004. We also engaged the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town and the Johnson and Johnson Burn unit at the Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. After a two-day workshop, it was clear that burns were a significant problem and although not the most common, traffic related deaths were higher; it certainly was in the top three causes of childhood injury related death. Burns were also an injury issue that had not been addressed effectively by any organisation in the past with regards to prevention. We also identified young children as a particular age group at risk for burns, especially in rural communities and informal settlements. The peak time for burn injury related death was at 1h00am in the morning and between 22h00 and 6h00am. This indicated that much of these burns where perhaps caused by fire and were during sleeping hours.
Other problems that where identified were that burn prevention messages differed, quite drastically, from region to region. Many fire departments where using the US LNTB curriculum, whilst other organisations had developed their own messages. There was no consistency with regards to messages and in some cases, messages where contradictory to others. Another problem was that all of these organisations had to rely on their own resources to get the message out. The fire department had to visit schools, which was great, but smaller departments, particularly in rural areas, just did not have the resources. Often it was these areas that were located in rural communities, which needed it most.
Because burns had a higher prevalence in the very young and very old, the participants identified the three to five-year old group as the priority. Acknowledging that there was no way that we could collectively reach this target audience, we decided to develop a childhood fire and burn injury prevention curriculum for preschools.
Avoiding the reinvention of the wheel
In 2005 another workshop was scheduled to take the next step in developing the programme further. This time the NFPA supported a request to send a well-known fire and injury prevention expert to facilitate the development of the specific burn prevention messages in South Africa. Edward Kirtley, from Oklahoma, who had several years of previous experience in developing other fire prevention programmes in South Africa, including the South African version of the Fire and Life Safety Educator (NFPA 1035) facilitated the workshop in Cape Town. Kwame Copper and Ernest Grant as well as an NFPA representative, Lisa Braxton, formed part of the international team.
It was important for us to follow the process of developing prevention messages from the outset, and not just modify existing LNTB messages. The burn injury problem in South Africa and particularly in the informal settlements is relatively unique and certainly very different to the US. However, there are some similarities with certain cultural aspects of the Native American communities. The advice and facilitation from of our international experts was vital, as fire and injury prevention education and particularly the development of structured prevention messages in South Africa is a relatively new field. For far too long we had been working with no formal, recognised methodology in developing specific prevention messages. Fire prevention education in itself is a relatively new concept and not well understood by senior officials and decision-makers.
Based on the previous workshop outcomes, the target audience identified for priority were the three to five-year age group coupled with the informal settlement fire and burn problem. Even though the environmental risks in these communities were very different to formal housing, many of the messages that where later developed would be applicable to the formal housing environment as well.
Due to the resource limitations in South Africa, it was agreed that the most effective means to get the ‘biggest bang for our buck’, would be to develop a national childhood fire and burn injury prevention curriculum. A delivery system was already in place, support from national department of education had been received and this would also support existing and future initiatives by each coalition member and provide a recognised and supported “national standard” to work from.
Elements to determine
The main injury problem and target audience (the people) had been identified. Other elements that where now required to be explored was the event itself (behavioural; causes of fire/burn), and the identification of interventions that could break chain of events. Finally, for this workshop, the development of the fire and burn injury prevention messages (create short appropriate messages) would follow.
Problem: identification
There are many causal factors involved in fire and burns, probably too many to even consider. Priority was given to the main causes that were identified using data and information from the following sources in South Africa:
• National statistics
• Local hospital based research
• NGOs and other Government services
• Injury experts
• Community/public
Very specific data and details of injury causes in informal settlements are not readily available in South Africa. Detailed information from fire investigations are commonly focussed on financial losses for insurance purposes or criminal acts and do not contain specific information on the human behaviour leading to injury related death or other life safety risks, such as escape routes in the home, smoking etc. However, through information that was available, community involvement and personal experience from firefighters and others, some of the main causes of these injury events where identified in the previous workshop and are listed as follows:
• Child left unattended and fire begins (unsupervised)
• Shack fire starts, child does not or cannot escape
• Spilled hot liquids from pot on stove
• Spilled hot liquids from table
• Paraffin (kerosene) stove/candle tips/falls over and starts fire
• Open flames of stoves causes clothing fire
• Stove not in proper working order
• Caregiver under influence of alcohol
• Criminal action to start fire (intentional)
While these identified events where not an exhaustive list, they painted a very accurate picture of the common risks and main causes of fire and burns in the informal settlement environment.
Burn injury chain of events (people and problem)
The next step was to prioritise the above main causes according to priority. The highest priority was given to the most common cause. Groups comprising representatives from each organisation where selected and each group was given a main cause to determine or hypothesise the injury chain of events.
For example:
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Evidence based fire prevention programme targeting high risk communities written by Rodney Eksteen (FRI Vol 2 no 7). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Evidence based fire prevention programme targeting high risk communities
By Rodney Eksteen
Each year, 25 million more people are living in slums and informal settlements (UNHABITAT, 2010). Fire risks are increasing due to high density building, new construction materials, more high-rise buildings and greater use of energy in concentrated areas (UNISDR, 2010). There are over 300 000 fire-related deaths per year (Mock et al, 2008), with over 95 percent of all burn deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). According to the Integrated Strategic Framework for the Prevention of Injury and Violence in South Africa, (DoH, 2012), the fire-related burn death rate in South Africa of 8,5 per 100 000, is greater than the world average of five per 100 000, and the African region of six per 100 000. In addition, the overall cost of insured property loss due to fire is estimated to cost the economy more than three billion Rand every year (Wood, 2013).
Although natural disasters cannot always be avoided, accidents or un-intentional burns are preventable (Bishara et al, 2009, Peck et al, 2009). Successful community-based fire prevention programmes have been implemented internationally and have helped to lower the risk of fire related death and injury and improve resilience in these communities. In South Africa, there is a need for evidence based community fire prevention programmes targeting the specific high-risk communities.
The aim of this article is to describe the process and collaborative approach that resulted in the design, development and implementation of a comprehensive fire and burn prevention programme, targeting vulnerable populations using local fire and burn risk data. The Learn Not to Burn® preschool programme South Africa, draws on international best practices to equip children, families and educators with the knowledge and skills to protect themselves from fire and burns and aims to impact on the reduction fire related risks within poor and high risk communities.
Each community is different, disaster and injury causes need to be determined and the demographics of the community need to be understood if we ever intend on having an impact on risk reduction and injury prevention. Having said this, it often becomes a daunting and overwhelming task to decide what to tackle first and how. Fire and burns are a social and economic, as well as a behavioural issue. Long term, sustainable change can be achieved by building little successes and by starting with those most at risk.
Unfortunately, for the most part, many disaster and fire prevention practitioners still provide prevention messages based on what we ‘think’ the public should know and in a way that we feel should apply to everyone, the so called ‘one size fits all’ approach.
It’s easy to simply take a predeveloped fire prevention programme and implement it ‘as is’ in any and every community. Risk reduction and fire prevention programmes are often neatly packaged and visually stunning. Unfortunately there are very little, if any, variations or information on customising programmes to suite different communities, cultures and specific needs.
Organisations that have large and diverse populations often have problems focussing on specific communities at risk or areas where certain injuries are more prevalent. It is imperative to focus on the greatest risk or injury cause in a given community as the injury profile will differ from community to community. Unfortunately, with limited resources, time and know how, many organisations end up implementing the ‘shotgun approach’ and provide fire and injury prevention education on issues which may not be a leading cause of mortality or morbidity (death and injury) in a given community. Resources and know-how are even less when it is necessary to modify or customise an existing programme, or even developing one from scratch, to suite a specific community need.
The development of fire and injury prevention messages provides direction and increases awareness of the problem, not to mention the focus on changing people’s behaviours. Prevention messages that have been developed can also serve as the core for slogans, advertisements, written materials etc, even if just creating awareness around the need for education. In South Africa, the development of the public information, education and relations (PIER) system in early 2000, has helped to do just that. From a situation of very poor support and emphasis on fire safety education to a situation where there is national support and awareness of the problem.
This, in part, was achieved by pushing information through any means to the public but also Government officials and decision-makers. Catchy phrases and slogans seized by these officials as well as the media and the positive publicity it generated, created awareness and support for these programmes. We now have a situation where many fire departments and related agencies have full time fire and life safety educators and there is national support for curriculum development and careers in this field. Many of these messages are now being utilised by various organisations, some to even advertise safety products. Messages that have been developed for children are often just as effective on adults.
What follows is a brief description of a process that may be utilised to develop focussed messages for a fire prevention programme targeting a specific audience. The examples used refer to a programme that was developed with the support and assistance from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and various risk reduction organisations in South Africa.
First things first
South Africa has the third highest burn injury rate in the world. Burn injury was most certainly an obvious place to start when deciding what injury issue to focus on. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Centre for High-Risk Outreach supported the adaptation of the NFPA’s Learn Not to Burn® (LNTB) preschool program for use across South Africa. Created in 1979, this programme has been used successfully in more than 50 000 classrooms world-wide.
In locations where it has been adopted, the lessons remembered by children have saved hundreds of lives. The Learn Not To Burn curriculum has been used in South Africa for approximately a decade. But we were not sure if the messages in the curriculum were completely suitable for the burn risks and common causal factors in South Africa. We also had, in many cases, very different cultures, languages and environmental influences. Therefore the first step of our approach was to determine the extent and causes of burns in South Africa.
Identification of risk factors and causes
Various organisations and experts where invited to form a coalition from the fire and emergency services, the Paraffin Safety Association, the Child Accident Prevention Foundation, the Medical Research Council, the Working on Fire programme and the Institute of Social and Health Sciences. The NFPA sent two injury prevention experts, Kwame Cooper from the Los Angeles Fire Department and Ernest Grant from the Jaycee Burn Centre in North Carolina to lead and direct the initial workshop in 2004. We also engaged the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town and the Johnson and Johnson Burn unit at the Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. After a two-day workshop, it was clear that burns were a significant problem and although not the most common, traffic related deaths were higher; it certainly was in the top three causes of childhood injury related death. Burns were also an injury issue that had not been addressed effectively by any organisation in the past with regards to prevention. We also identified young children as a particular age group at risk for burns, especially in rural communities and informal settlements. The peak time for burn injury related death was at 1h00am in the morning and between 22h00 and 6h00am. This indicated that much of these burns where perhaps caused by fire and were during sleeping hours.
Other problems that where identified were that burn prevention messages differed, quite drastically, from region to region. Many fire departments where using the US LNTB curriculum, whilst other organisations had developed their own messages. There was no consistency with regards to messages and in some cases, messages where contradictory to others. Another problem was that all of these organisations had to rely on their own resources to get the message out. The fire department had to visit schools, which was great, but smaller departments, particularly in rural areas, just did not have the resources. Often it was these areas that were located in rural communities, which needed it most.
Because burns had a higher prevalence in the very young and very old, the participants identified the three to five-year old group as the priority. Acknowledging that there was no way that we could collectively reach this target audience, we decided to develop a childhood fire and burn injury prevention curriculum for preschools.
Avoiding the reinvention of the wheel
In 2005 another workshop was scheduled to take the next step in developing the programme further. This time the NFPA supported a request to send a well-known fire and injury prevention expert to facilitate the development of the specific burn prevention messages in South Africa. Edward Kirtley, from Oklahoma, who had several years of previous experience in developing other fire prevention programmes in South Africa, including the South African version of the Fire and Life Safety Educator (NFPA 1035) facilitated the workshop in Cape Town. Kwame Copper and Ernest Grant as well as an NFPA representative, Lisa Braxton, formed part of the international team.
It was important for us to follow the process of developing prevention messages from the outset, and not just modify existing LNTB messages. The burn injury problem in South Africa and particularly in the informal settlements is relatively unique and certainly very different to the US. However, there are some similarities with certain cultural aspects of the Native American communities. The advice and facilitation from of our international experts was vital, as fire and injury prevention education and particularly the development of structured prevention messages in South Africa is a relatively new field. For far too long we had been working with no formal, recognised methodology in developing specific prevention messages. Fire prevention education in itself is a relatively new concept and not well understood by senior officials and decision-makers.
Based on the previous workshop outcomes, the target audience identified for priority were the three to five-year age group coupled with the informal settlement fire and burn problem. Even though the environmental risks in these communities were very different to formal housing, many of the messages that where later developed would be applicable to the formal housing environment as well.
Due to the resource limitations in South Africa, it was agreed that the most effective means to get the ‘biggest bang for our buck’, would be to develop a national childhood fire and burn injury prevention curriculum. A delivery system was already in place, support from national department of education had been received and this would also support existing and future initiatives by each coalition member and provide a recognised and supported “national standard” to work from.
Elements to determine
The main injury problem and target audience (the people) had been identified. Other elements that where now required to be explored was the event itself (behavioural; causes of fire/burn), and the identification of interventions that could break chain of events. Finally, for this workshop, the development of the fire and burn injury prevention messages (create short appropriate messages) would follow.
Problem: identification
There are many causal factors involved in fire and burns, probably too many to even consider. Priority was given to the main causes that were identified using data and information from the following sources in South Africa:
• National statistics
• Local hospital based research
• NGOs and other Government services
• Injury experts
• Community/public
Very specific data and details of injury causes in informal settlements are not readily available in South Africa. Detailed information from fire investigations are commonly focussed on financial losses for insurance purposes or criminal acts and do not contain specific information on the human behaviour leading to injury related death or other life safety risks, such as escape routes in the home, smoking etc. However, through information that was available, community involvement and personal experience from firefighters and others, some of the main causes of these injury events where identified in the previous workshop and are listed as follows:
• Child left unattended and fire begins (unsupervised)
• Shack fire starts, child does not or cannot escape
• Spilled hot liquids from pot on stove
• Spilled hot liquids from table
• Paraffin (kerosene) stove/candle tips/falls over and starts fire
• Open flames of stoves causes clothing fire
• Stove not in proper working order
• Caregiver under influence of alcohol
• Criminal action to start fire (intentional)
While these identified events where not an exhaustive list, they painted a very accurate picture of the common risks and main causes of fire and burns in the informal settlement environment.
Burn injury chain of events (people and problem)
The next step was to prioritise the above main causes according to priority. The highest priority was given to the most common cause. Groups comprising representatives from each organisation where selected and each group was given a main cause to determine or hypothesise the injury chain of events.
For example:
Once the injury chain of events have been established, interventions were listed (brainstormed) to break the causal chain at each level. These possible interventions were then listed under education, engineering, enforcement, economic incentives and emergency response to determine a multi-pronged approach to prevention. Our specific objective was to develop educational messages targeting the vulnerable group, which included providing the following types of actions:
• Prevention
• Protection (response)
• Persuasion (influence behaviours of others)
Messages where then developed emphasising the positive action or desired behaviour to be followed. Messages where then tested against the characteristics of the three to five-year old child. Elements of these characteristics included:
• Linguistic readiness (will they understand the message)
• Emotional readiness (as stress levels increase, decision making abilities decrease)
• Cognitive readiness (can they reason)
• Physical readiness (in terms of age/ability)
• Culturally appropriate (within value set they’ve been raised with)
• Language appropriate (idiomatic language/dialect)
• Child’s locus of control (what they can/cannot influence)
The messages developed where then discussed and evaluated by the entire group and the most appropriate, based on the above points where selected. The messages selected in order of priority were:
Stay away from hot things, they can burn you
1. Stay away from flames, they can burn you
2. Stay away from paraffin, it can hurt you
3. Matches and lighters are not toys, leave them alone
4. If your home is on fire, go outside and stay outside
5. If your clothes are on fire, stop, drop and roll
6. Cool a burn with water
7. The fire fighter is a helper
The messages were placed in order of priority to give importance to the behaviour that would provide the highest level of injury prevention. Messages one to four focus on prevention (primary prevention), whilst messages five to eight focus on response or protection (secondary prevention).
After reviewing the originally identified causes of fire and burns in the informal settlements, it was discovered that each of these eight messages provided an appropriate behaviour to prevent serious fire and burn injury for every main cause originally identified.
Implementation
After this process was complete and the messages had been finalised, a curriculum developer was approached to design, develop and evaluate the resources for a national childhood fire and burn injury prevention curriculum for preschools using the current curriculum outline. Addressing the existing school curriculum had to focus on integration of these eight messages into the existing objective based outcomes and were not be an ‘add on’. This would assist and motivate preschool teachers to use the burn injury prevention lessons to meet other outcomes as well such as numeracy and literacy.
After discussions with the coalition members and the NFPA, it was decided that the programme would be known as the ‘Learn Not To Burn Preschool Programme South Africa’.
Conclusion
Initially there was a lot of anxiety, due to the magnitude of the fire and burn injury problem and the amount of potential causes. This ‘paralysis of analysis’, was fortunately overcome by an effective and committed coalition, but perhaps more importantly an effective and experienced facilitator in the development of fire and injury prevention messages. An enormous amount of time and money was saved through working together in a committed international collaboration.
Download the Learn Not To Burn South Africa programme from: www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication/fire-and-flood-awareness-campaign under Learn Not To Burn.
• Prevention
• Protection (response)
• Persuasion (influence behaviours of others)
Messages where then developed emphasising the positive action or desired behaviour to be followed. Messages where then tested against the characteristics of the three to five-year old child. Elements of these characteristics included:
• Linguistic readiness (will they understand the message)
• Emotional readiness (as stress levels increase, decision making abilities decrease)
• Cognitive readiness (can they reason)
• Physical readiness (in terms of age/ability)
• Culturally appropriate (within value set they’ve been raised with)
• Language appropriate (idiomatic language/dialect)
• Child’s locus of control (what they can/cannot influence)
The messages developed where then discussed and evaluated by the entire group and the most appropriate, based on the above points where selected. The messages selected in order of priority were:
Stay away from hot things, they can burn you
1. Stay away from flames, they can burn you
2. Stay away from paraffin, it can hurt you
3. Matches and lighters are not toys, leave them alone
4. If your home is on fire, go outside and stay outside
5. If your clothes are on fire, stop, drop and roll
6. Cool a burn with water
7. The fire fighter is a helper
The messages were placed in order of priority to give importance to the behaviour that would provide the highest level of injury prevention. Messages one to four focus on prevention (primary prevention), whilst messages five to eight focus on response or protection (secondary prevention).
After reviewing the originally identified causes of fire and burns in the informal settlements, it was discovered that each of these eight messages provided an appropriate behaviour to prevent serious fire and burn injury for every main cause originally identified.
Implementation
After this process was complete and the messages had been finalised, a curriculum developer was approached to design, develop and evaluate the resources for a national childhood fire and burn injury prevention curriculum for preschools using the current curriculum outline. Addressing the existing school curriculum had to focus on integration of these eight messages into the existing objective based outcomes and were not be an ‘add on’. This would assist and motivate preschool teachers to use the burn injury prevention lessons to meet other outcomes as well such as numeracy and literacy.
After discussions with the coalition members and the NFPA, it was decided that the programme would be known as the ‘Learn Not To Burn Preschool Programme South Africa’.
Conclusion
Initially there was a lot of anxiety, due to the magnitude of the fire and burn injury problem and the amount of potential causes. This ‘paralysis of analysis’, was fortunately overcome by an effective and committed coalition, but perhaps more importantly an effective and experienced facilitator in the development of fire and injury prevention messages. An enormous amount of time and money was saved through working together in a committed international collaboration.
Download the Learn Not To Burn South Africa programme from: www.westerncape.gov.za/general-publication/fire-and-flood-awareness-campaign under Learn Not To Burn.