Trussville Fire and Rescue Public Education Program in a joint venture the with the

Alabama Department of Health Injury Prevention Division and the Alabama Fire

College Risk Watch Program, has implemented the National Fire Protection

Association’s Risk Watch Natural Disasters Preparedness curriculum into Trussville Schools. This disaster preparation program helps children in preschool through eighth grade prepare for disasters by educating them to take actions toward general preparedness and learn responses to disasters by teaching them the skills and knowledge they need to make positive choices for their personal safety and well being. The Risk Watch curriculum covers general preparedness for disasters such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and severe winter storms. This program is an extension of the Risk Watch Unintentional Injury Prevention Program which was implemented in all  Trussville schools in the year 2000. Risk Watch Unintentional Injury Program covers lessons from fire and burn prevention to water safety, bike and pedestrian safety, falls prevention, firearm safety, poison prevention, choking, strangulation and suffocation prevention, and motor vehicle safety.  We took this a step further for our High School students and implemented a program called Fatal Vision. Fatal Vision uses goggles to represent different impairment levels for the students to test their motor skills in different visual impairment situations. Together with our Police Department we coordinate  the program to include hand to eye coordination exercises which include driving a golf cart thru a marked course and simple tasks such as throwing a soccer ball to each other and catching , then the police will give them a sobriety test and if they fail… hand cuffs.

NFPA has also developed a community based outreach program, Get Ready, a general preparedness program provides residents with an overview of the importance of disaster preparedness and what citizens can do to make the city of Trussville safer, stronger, and better prepared to respond to threats of disaster, natural, unintentional, and intentional. The Get Ready program was delivered to fire departments in March 2007 as part of a federal and state initiative to prepare communities to be ready in case disaster strikes and what to do afterwards in the case of an event. Our seniors have already been preparing for emergency situations through the Remembering When Fire and Fall Prevention Program and the RU Ready Program (natural disaster preparedness program) used in our Senior Citizens Activity Center.

   Over the past year our Public Education Program has also partnered with many other agencies and businesses to provide educational services and resources for our community. Liberty Mutual Insurance, along with Trussville Fire Department, Alabama Fire College and Trussville Wal-mart put on a bicycle safety rodeo in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, and also at our schools.  Interactive bicycle safety lessons were taught, free bicycle helmets were given to children that did not have one, and at the end of the day a drawing from all who participated was held for two free bicycles, courtesy of Wal-Mart.

    Trussville Fire Department participates in a wide array of city events such as seasonal parades, Festival on the Cahaba, Dog Daze, Earth Day, and many other local events.  Fire station tours are provided for a diversity of groups, including schools, home school groups, boy scouts and others in and around our city.

Our Public Education Division has also been involved with many leadership roles:

·         Participated in the planning and supervision of the Alabama Fire College Safety Fair held on the Fire College campus where our middle school technologies students had their own booth set up showing off the Risk Watch web site and Blogs that they have created. Over all, 350 children from around the state attended the safety fair. 

·         Involved in writing a State Safe Community Proclamation and participated in the Proclamation Ceremony held at the state capitol auditorium declaring April as Risk Watch Safe Community Month. Through our fire department the city of Trussville is registered on a state and National level as a Risk Watch Safe Community.

·         Raised funds and participated in Camp Conquest, the Alabama Children’s Burn Camp held at Children’s Harbor on Lake Martin for burn survivors ages 6-16.