New Zealand Fire Service

Topic : Te Kotahitanga Fire Safety Ambassador Programme

Goals

Co-ordinated State Agencies
Trusted State Services
Accessible State Services

Summary

The New Zealand Fire Service has successfully embarked on an ambitious and bold programme to improve fire safety outcomes, reaching out to its most at-risk groups in communities.

This programme is aligned to the State Services Commission’s Mosaic and Circuit Breaker methodologies. The Fire Service bought together MSD (including WINZ and CYF), ACC and Housing New Zealand, Territorial Authorities, Iwi and private sector organisations to collaboratively achieve outcomes for each agency in a synergistic approach.

The programme initially started in Northland and has now spread throughout New Zealand and reached more than 64,000 people with face-to-face risk reduction and education strategies. A whole-of-government approach has been achieved through training unemployed people as educators, with skilled fire service people acting as mentors.

The case study will outline:

Drivers of the programme
How the programme operates
What the outcomes are
The successes and difficulties of initiating and maintaining such a programme
The relationships between community representatives, commercial entities and the difficulties associated when partnering with government agencies