Staff from various departments across North Wales Fire and Rescue Service have teamed up to deliver a series of workshops to young people on the consequences of deliberate fire setting through the North Wales Police, ‘Justice in a Day’ scheme.

Justice in a Day is a dynamic and transformative educational workshop aimed at preventing young people from committing crime and to raising awareness about the criminal justice system and the negative effects of crime.

Staff from the Arson Reduction Team joined forces with members of Community Fire Safety, the Phoenix initiative and fire and rescue service Educationalists to deliver a half an hour talk to schools in Mold, Flint, Wrexham, Llandudno, Prestatyn, Caernarfon, Dolgellau and Llangefni.

Tim Owen, Arson Reduction Manager, said, “This was a fantastic opportunity to deliver daily educational workshops over a five week period to young people – something which would not have been achievable without departments coming together in this way to deliver one robust message which is more likely to have a lasting positive impact on the audience.”

The workshops consisted of showing the ‘Burning your Future’ DVD, a hard hitting short film by North Wales Fire and Rescue Service and North Wales Police that was launched in February, followed by an educational talk and question and answer session.

Dave Evans from Police and Community Trust (PACT) said: “The demand from schools for our ‘Justice in a Day’ programme is as great as ever, and we are now in our seventh year of delivery.

“The objective of the programme is to educate young people about the workings of the criminal justice system and the consequences of crime. To be able to have the Arson Reduction Team deliver messages about deliberate fire-setting this year was an opportunity too good to miss, and the presentations complemented the aims and objectives of ‘Justice in a Day’ perfectly.

“This year the programme reached over 850 young people, and I am very grateful to Tim Owen and his team for all their support.”

Llinos Owen, Assistant Headteacher at Ysgol Dyffryn Nantlle, thanked the team and said: “The pupils enjoyed themselves and learned a lot during the day. The fire and rescue service presentation and video was effective and very impressive. After returning to the school, children remembered a number of important facts from the video. Everyone had an unforgettable experience.”