Two North Island firefighters will use a State scholarship to research overseas programmes tackling child fire-setting.

Napier senior firefighter Natasha Brown and Auckland fire safety officer Ray Coleman will travel to the United Kingdom and United States respectively to look at programmes tackling fire-setting in children and young people.

The aim is to enhance the New Zealand Fire Service’s Fire Awareness and Intervention Programme (FAIP) which seeks to modify the behaviour of at-risk children and young people to break their cycle of fire-setting. FAIP currently boasts a success rate of over 90 percent.

Natasha will look at a UK equivalent programme to FAIP to identify areas where other agencies are helping the Fire and Rescue Service deliver early intervention.

She says the model could be successfully applied here to identify potential firelighters earlier.

“At the moment we have a referral network but that’s as far a it goes. Over there they share information, data-share and pool resources.”

One of the key aspects she will look at is how all the different organisations, from territorial authorities to police and mental health providers, “keep everything rosy” in their inter-relations.

Ray will travel to Massachusetts and New York, looking at how the Fire Service can extend its capabilities to identify juvenile fire-setting at an early stage.

He says the Fire Service presently lacks the ability to follow up on suspicion of juvenile involvement in fires.

“At the moment we rely on referrals, referrals, referrals. We know what’s going on, [after a deliberately lit fire] but nothing gets done about it.”

Flagging fires lit by juveniles promptly will enable the Fire Service to identify recidivism at an earlier stage, thus speeding up the involvement of FAIP.

Both recipients say their work will expand the good work already being done by the FAIP practitioners, enabling it to operate at full potential.

State spokesperson Adrienne Collins says the insurer is delighted to be aiding Ray and Natasha in their research and excited about the potential results.

We believe the work being done by FAIP in helping these kids understand the consequences of deliberately lit fires will help lower the incidence of loss and trauma in the community.

“That’s why State is proud to be awarding these scholarships.”