A partnership with BLB to carry out wellbeing safety checks on vulnerable local residents and more
When: 2018 Safe & Well Check programme. 2019 CERT team supported. 2020 further support during Covid
Partners: VANEL. Blue Lights Brigade. Humberside Fire and Rescue Services. Police.
During 2019 Big Local North Cleethorpes provided financial support to two local community safety initiatives – the Blue Lights Brigade (BLB) Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and the Safe & Well check programme led by Humberside Fire and Rescue and again, supported by volunteers from BLB.
The Blue Lights Brigade (BLB) was a major project managed by VANEL and funded first by Big Lottery through Awards For All and via NESTA. BLB recruited and trained retired emergency services officers (Police, Fire, Ambulance or Military) to serve in teams of volunteers to serve their communities in a coordinated way.
At the peak, BLB probably had nearly 400 volunteers on their books and one of their initiatives was to form CERT teams of 10-12 volunteers to serve together in a specific geographical area. The CERT teams (Community Emergency Response Teams) would be able to not only do proactive volunteering but also would be able to respond in emergencies under the direction of Police or emergency lead officers.
Big Local North Cleethorpes saw the potential of this programme to help support the North Cleethorpes community.
The first initiative we supported was the Safe & Well Check programme. This programme funded BLB to enable volunteers to carry out home safety checks to vulnerable households in North Cleethorpes. Target properties in the North Cleethorpes Big Local area were identified as those highly likely to have a property fire identified based on intelligence and trends matched with risk factors of the occupiers likely to contribute to a person dying in a fire. A total of 253 properties had safe and well visits during our part of the programme.
Humberside Fire and Rescue Service (HFRS) provided in-kind supervision of the volunteers and identified the majority of residents to be targeted by the service in addition to taking direct referrals arising from the publicity or letters left at properties.
As well as HFRS coordinating the programme, they were able to provide nearly £2000 worth of safety equipment to households within our area. (Such as fire alarms; fire retardant mats; ash trays; extension leads)
Next, during 2019, Big Local North Cleethorpes funded the training and setup of a Cleethorpes based CERT team to join other teams in place across North East Lincolnshire. The members of this team were local or able to attend emergencies within Cleethorpes should they arise. Fortunately the CERT teams were never actually called out during major emergencies, but they did proactively support some environmental cleanup operations along the estuary and acted as wellbeing stewards and volunteers during a couple of Armed Forces Days in Cleethorpes.
During Covid there was a new requirement for Blue Lights Brigade to provide support to the community. In collaboration with a wide range of partners and led by North East Lincolnshire Council, BLB started coordinating a wide number of volunteers and started carrying out deliveries of food boxes to residents isolating across NEL. This was a busy and intensive time for all partner organisations to regularly reach isolating people and some of the most vulnerable in the community.
By this time Blue Lights Brigade was operating as an independent CIC rather than being run as a project by VANEL. BLB continued to serve the community until around 2022 when lack of funding meant the programme and organisation finally closed.
Big Local North Cleethorpes was very pleased to have been able to fund a number of the initiatives supported by BLB and the operation will have supported and helped hundreds of residents across our area during the duration.
A big thank you of course to every volunteer involved with Blue Lights Brigade and their good work. A particular thanks to Steve Lynn who helped get the programme up and running at VANEL. Huge thanks too to Steve Jones who took over the programme and ran it for the duration of the project into being a CIC and throughout Covid. Big Local North Cleethorpes were pleased to be able to support the programme.
