Children's Village Of Washington County: An Overview

Michael W. Weller
Life Safety Education Officer
Hagerstown Fire Department
25 W. Church Street
Hagerstown, MD 21740
(301)790-2476

What Is Children's Village?

Children's Village of Washington County is a comprehensive life safety education complex located in Hagerstown, Maryland. Washington County supports a population of 121,000 with 40,000 citizens respectively residing in the City of Hagerstown. The fully accessible 1.5 million dollar facility, constructed by and for the citizens of our community, serves as a central location where life safety instruction is presented to all Washington County public and private school second grade students.

Second grade students visit Children's Village one class at a time for two consecutive days of safety education. Depending upon travel time to the facility each class normally spans approximately 4.5 hours. Day 1 curriculum, presented by a uniformed firefighter, is comprised of comprehensive fire, home, and water safety. Day 2 curriculum, presented by a uniformed police officer, covers the role of a police officer in the community, comprehensive traffic, pedestrian and bicycle safety, drug and alcohol awareness, and personal safety issues. Curricula to address special need audiences is also in place.

The non-copyrighted curriculum framework is included for your review.

How Did Children's Village Originate?

For many years local fire and police officials recognized the need to create a centralized life safety education center within our community. In 1986 our local telephone company teamed with officials from the Maryland State Police to pursue the concept of developing a safety education center.

An initial effort was the creation of a steering committee to examine and pursue the concept of a central life safety education complex. The steering committee included members of all local emergency service agencies, representatives from corporate business, local government officials, and interested private citizens. The writer was included as a member of this initial steering committee.

A sub-committee was formed and assigned the task of researching the effectiveness of centralized life safety education centers already in existence throughout the nation. Investigation of several such facilities affirmed the indication that creating a facility in our community would indeed prove successful.

Key Elements Of Success

Our first major highlight of success came in the form of concept approval from our local Board of Education. Our Board of Education liked the idea so much they immediately provided the five acre parcel of land where Children's Village stands today. The Board of Education also agreed to provide insurance coverage and busing for all students upon completion of the facility. Prior to facility completion all emergency service instructors received training from classroom teachers on how to present age appropriate lessons to second grade students.

The second major highlight came in the form of a local contractor who approached the steering committee and asked to be named the volunteer construction coordinator for the project. This individual would prove to be the greatest driving force behind our building effort by encouraging his fellow building supply and contracting colleagues to donate building materials and construction efforts for this worthy community cause. The majority of construction efforts were the result of in-kind donated services.

The third highlight is simply our community. Our community has rallied behind the creation of a central life safety education facility from the beginning, when the concept was a mere paragraph on a sheet of paper. Not only did our community construct this facility, they continue to support on-going efforts to enhance development and delivery of new and innovative life safety education efforts. Contractors, corporate business and industry, local government, the media, Board of Education, and citizens at large continue to provide key support to Children's Village.

Components Of Instruction

Active and cooperative learning is the foundation of both curriculums presented at Children's Village . Students are presented and master simple safety concepts which lead to more complex areas of instruction. Both curriculums were developed after reviewing many effective programs already in operation throughout the nation and are Board of Education approved for second grade students. A very effective enhancement to our program is that many concepts relevant to local hazards are presented to students; this truly customizes our curriculum. The curriculum can be altered at any time on approval of the Board of Education to address specific needs.

The fire department assigns homework as part of its curriculum. Students are deputized as junior fire marshals and assigned the task of completing the homework with parental assistance. Any noted deficiency such as the lack of smoke alarm protection is immediately addressed by the writer as a quality assurance effort when the homework is returned to Children's Village. A copy of the assignment is attached.

Curriculum Highlights

The "House That Larry Built":

After learning basic fire behavior and response techniques students assemble at an 8' x 8' doll house and see first hand how smoke travels through a typical multi-story house. The structure was custom designed and hand crafted over a three year period by a veteran firefighter of the Hagerstown Fire Department. Non-toxic smoke is produced by a smoke machine and is directed upward through the structure by a muffin fan originally utilized for cooling internal computer parts and now located inside the chimney.

This innovative teaching tool, generally utilized after Unit 5, demonstrates and reinforces the need for proper life safety protection and alternate escape strategies.

Approximately $5,000.00 has been invested into the cute lifesaver.

The "Power Of Fire":

The "Power of Fire" is an actual modular type residential structure which sustained heavy damage in six minutes as the result of an unattended cooking-related fire. The dwelling was donated to the Hagerstown Fire Department by the property owner and relocated to the Children's Village facility by fire department personnel. This graphic example of the destructive force and speed of uncontrolled fire has proven to be an extremely effective teaching tool for instructors and an unforgettable learning experience to all who visit the facility.

In addition to the many hours of manual labor required to orchestrate the successful creation of this effective educational resource, the fire department and a local insurance sponsor invested approximately $15,000.00 to provide quality lighting, heating, and accessibility to the structure.

While relocating a fire-damaged modular structure sounds like a mammoth task, it was actually accomplished very smoothly. Please contact the writer for further information regarding the specifics of this effort. Creating the "Power of Fire" was truly worth our effort!

The Safety "Village" Experience:

The Day 2 curriculum includes comprehensive traffic, pedestrian, and bicycle safety. As a highlight to the second day students visit a miniature safety "Village" located on our campus. The "Village" which features miniature streets and structures is equipped with operational traffic lights, street signage, and crosswalk areas.

The highlight of the Day 2 "Village" visit is the opportunity to operate a miniature electric vehicle around the miniature streets. Becoming the miniature vehicle operator allows students to encounter their peers who may be acting as pedestrians or bicycle operators and reinforces the need for practicing proper safety behaviors.

Community sponsor agencies purchase the miniature vehicles at a cost of approximately $1,500.00 each. Many of the structures within the "Village" were erected by individual sponsors.

Instructors

All police officers and firefighters involved with Children's Village volunteer for respective instructor positions. Selected instructors receive basic elementary educator training and are paired with a mentor instructor to team teach until the new instructor is ready to serve in full capacity.

All police officers and career firefighters who provide instruction do so as part of their regular duty shift. Volunteer firefighters provide instruction on personal time.

Personnel are required to provide instruction to students at least once every six weeks to retain curriculum delivery skill. Instructors are evaluated each time they teach by the respective classroom teacher with constructive feedback provided to increase delivery performance. A copy of the instructor evaluation instrument is attached.

Twenty firefighters and twenty police officers currently serve as instructional staff at Children's Village. The fire and police department education officers serve as supervision for the respective instructors.

A tremendous amount of technical support has been provided to this project by off-duty career firefighters of the Hagerstown Fire Department. These humble professionals coordinated the relocation of the "Power of Fire", designed and constructed "The House That Larry Built", and continue to provide on-going developmental and financial support. The writer is very appreciative of this effort. We make things happen!

Children's Village: Today and Beyond

At present, approximately 2,000 second grade students from 76 public and 8 private schools visit the Children's Village facility each year. The center is in continuous operation, five days per week, throughout the entire school term. A master plan to address future growth of our community and expansion of our facility is currently being developed.

Students are evaluated to measure safety knowledge before and after their visit to the center. Parents are also evaluated in the same manner to measure safety knowledge and obtain input regarding an overall opinion to their child's educational experience.

Future enhancements should allow creation of a centralized injury reporting system with data from local physicians offices and medical facilities being collected and processed into information to prove injury control efforts successful.

In addition to functioning as the center for second grade life safety education, Children's Village is utilized for many other purposes. The Hagerstown Fire Department presents monthly juvenile firesetting intervention programs for students ages seven to eighteen and individual intervention education for children under age seven at the facility. Life safety continuing education programs are presented to all age groups during evening and weekend hours. Each summer a life safety open house is offered with regular attendance of 5,000 plus!

Curricula for special need audiences is currently in place with instructional staff receiving continuing education regarding effective delivery to students. The facility is completely accessible.

The goal of our community is to continue development of Children's Village to expand and address the life safety needs of our citizens thus creating and enhancing a true community injury control center.

Board of Directors

Children's Village of Washington County is a tax exempt, non-profit organization managed by a citizens Board of Directors. The Board is comprised of local emergency service and government officials, Board of Education representatives, corporate managers, elected government officials, and private citizens. The group meets quarterly and governs the development, operation, and maintenance of the facility.

The Children's Village curriculum is approved and supervised by our local Board of Education.

Children's Village employs an office manager and executive director who supervise the daily operation and growth of the complex.

Program Funding

As mentioned earlier, a tremendous amount of in-kind design and construction work from our local building supply and construction industry has made Children's Village the reality it is today.

Almost every local service organization and PTA group supported development of the project by providing interior furnishings, educational support equipment, and miniature electric vehicles. These groups, along with many volunteer emergency service agencies and labor organizations of local professional fire and police departments, continue to provide on-going financial support which augments the annual operating budget.

In addition to providing substantial in-kind construction support and allowing on-duty professional personnel to serve as instructors, local government annually contributes a substantial stipend toward operational costs.

In 1993 the State of Maryland awarded a $100,000.00 Bond Grant to the program contingent upon matching funds being generated by our local community.

Summary

Children's Village of Washington County is a shining example of a unified effort aimed at creating a community injury control center where the dissemination of quality age appropriate life safety education will initiate true behavioral change resulting in the reduction of injury, mortality, and property loss.

Should your organization consider a similar project please feel free to contact the writer as the Hagerstown Fire Department has been a driving force behind the development of Children's Village.

Designing, creating, and operating a project of this magnitude has certainly resulted in many learning experiences. The overwhelming success of this project has certainly been worth the hard work!

We are grateful for the opportunity to share!