Press Release: Cassidy Presents at North Carolina Fire & Life Safety Education Conference

The following is a press release issued by Holliston Fire Chief Michael Cassidy:

CHAPEL HILL, NC – Holliston Fire Chief Michael Cassidy traveled to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to co-present a workshop at the 35th Annual North Carolina Fire & Life Safety Education Conference earlier this week.

Cassidy joined Jennifer Mieth, Public Education Manager for the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services, and Professor Cindy Ouellette of Rhode Island College in delivering Proving Public Education Works: Evaluation for the Fire and Life Safety Educator on Wednesday.

In the three-hour workshop, they shared data from the S.A.F.E. (Student Awareness of Fire Education) grant program in Massachusetts. All three are members of the Massachusetts Fire and Safety Education Task Force, whose mission is to provide leadership and advocacy for fire and safety education within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In an effort to demonstrate the effectiveness of the S.A.F.E. program, the Task Force, working with a consultant, recently developed an evaluation to document the knowledge and behaviors third graders in Massachusetts have learned from specially-trained fire and life safety educators. A sixth-grade evaluation is also in the final stages of development, and was piloted in several classes at the in December.

During the 15-year period since the S.A.F.E. program started in the fall of 1995, there has been a 68 percent drop in child fire deaths in Massachusetts. There have also been over 250 documented "Young Heroes," students who put into practice the fire and life safety lessons they learned in the classroom during a real life emergency to save themselves or others.

Two of those Young Heroes were Holliston students taught by Cassidy, who has been delivering fire and life safety lessons in town during his almost 20 years with the .

The members of the Task Force who traveled to North Carolina will be delivering a shorter version of the Proving Public Education Works presentation at the National Fire Protection Association’s Conference & Expo in June. All three have presented on various fire and life safety education topics at the Massachusetts’ Fire and Life Safety Public Education Conference.

For more information regarding the S.A.F.E. program: www.mass.gov/dfs.

For more information regarding the NC FLSE Conference: www.ncflse.com.

For more information regarding the NFPA Conference & Expo: www.nfpa.org.