As students return to school, local charity HOPE is launching a new initiative, to keep young people safer when travelling by car in South Yorkshire.
The Charity was set up to help people bereaved or affected by traumatic events such as road traffic collisions, fires and drowning. But in a bid to minimise the number of families suffering following a fatal road traffic collision, HOPE is diversifying its activities to prevent young people becoming victims themselves.
Road safety sessions will be delivered to young people aged 13-18 years who are not in mainstream education. Pupil referral units, alternative educational settings and out of school groups will be offered the sessions to target the hard-to-reach audience of young people who may have missed the more traditional road safety input offered in secondary schools and colleges. The work has been made possible through a community grant from the National Lottery.
The session uses extracts from a film called Collision which was developed by the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership using local actors and locations to make it relevant to the South Yorkshire audience. HOPE has developed a one-hour long session to engage with young people and raise awareness of road safety issues which impact them when travelling by car. Through discussion, the session will help them to recognise unsafe behaviours and how these are triggered and consider what the young people themselves could do to keep safe when travelling by car.
The presenters delivering the sessions are ex-emergency service workers and have first-hand experience of attending road traffic collisions. This gives them important insights and understanding, which they can impart during the sessions.
Collision Project co-ordinator Joanne Wehrle said, “This is an exciting new phase in the delivery of the Collision session. Prior to COVID, the HOPE Charity worked with the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership to deliver the Collision resource to over 3,000 young people in secondary schools across the county. The Lottery funding enables us to target those settings that were not reached and work with smaller groups of young people who are just as deserving and in need of our support, to help make them safer road users.
“HOPE sees firsthand the devastation suffered by families and whole communities when someone is killed in a road traffic collision. We would much rather those people be saved from that trauma and so this preventative approach to road traffic collisions is becoming an important element of our work at HOPE.”
As well as delivering important road safety messages, due to the work that HOPE does to support the family and friends of road traffic collision victims, help is available to anyone attending the sessions who has been affected by such a traumatic incident. This can include home visits, walks, peer support groups and spending time with HOPE’s therapy dog, Oliver. This is a unique selling point of the sessions offered by the charity.
For more information or to book a session please contact Joanne Wehrle, Collision Project Co-ordinator at joanne@hope-sy.org.uk or call 07864 613139.
About HOPE
At HOPE we provide free and unlimited support to people bereaved or affected by traumatic events such as road traffic collisions, fires or drowning. We support children and adults of all ages, from all backgrounds.
HOPE has been supporting people since 2006. We are an inclusive group; our loss is what brings us together. We support you and your family in your time of need, for however long you need.
Contact:
Joanne Wehrle
Collision Project Co-ordinator
HOPE charity
Mobile: 07864 613139
Email: Joanne@hope-sy.org.uk
Web: www.hope-sy.org.uk
