Safety begins in the home address | News

Even though she’s an old hand at her job, Amy Allen, a fire and life safety educator for the Northwest Fire District (NFD), recently learned something startling. It turns out some children, even in the fourth grade, do not know their addresses.

“It was really concerning for us,” she said. “I have had several kids who will say, ‘My mom said I don’t need to learn my address because you don’t need to know it.’”

Allen was alarmed. She understands the need to protect children from strangers but she also sees the huge problem this can become if there is an emergency at home and no adult is available to call 911. Who will tell emergency personnel where to go? The call center does not have the capacity to see where the call is coming from.

“It’s a challenge that we didn’t anticipate having in introducing that information to children,” NFD community relations manager Anne-Marie Braswell said.

But this is just one of the knowledge gaps Marana’s public educators are encountering when they present their safety programs to kids around town.

What’s the solution?

Teach your kids their address.

“When I go in, I teach them this is for the importance of the firefighters, (or) if you need an ambulance or the police,” Allen said. “This is the purpose of why you need to know it.”

She even encounters parents who don’t see the need. They ask, “Can’t you track my phone? I can track my kid’s phone.”

Allen has an answer.

“I understand that, but it’s through an app system (on a specific phone),” she said. “We don’t have that ability.”

Although phone technology has come a long way and 911 operators can often triangulate phone locations, locating a caller can still take time.

However, “that takes time,” Braswell said. “(Having) a human being on the line saying, ‘I’m at this exact location,’ the call taker can send resources to that exact location and, yes, we’re talking about seconds … but in an emergency that could be the difference between life and death.”

It really does have to be the exact address. It’s not enough for a child to say, “I live by the green house.”

Children really can learn their address.

“They have the capacity to memorize, they have the capacity to understand when it’s appropriate to use that information,” Braswell said.

Allen has a great way to teach children their address. “We talk about how our homes have an address and it’s almost like our homes have a first name and a last name,” she said. “The first name of your home will always be the numbers of your home. … The last name will be the street that your home lives on.”

Allen said it’s in the second grade when she starts to introduce the students the idea of being aware of where they are.

“Maybe you are not at home when something happens, but you happen to be at the park,” Allen added. “Do you know the name of the park where you’re at? Do you know the name of the neighborhood where you livw? Almost all of us live in an HOA and all our neighborhoods seem to be labeled. The goal is just to be able to provide as much information as you can.”

The Northwest Fire District has two battalions with 11 stations and covers 159 square miles, so the more location information given, the better. 

Knowing the home address is important but what if a kid cannot get into a phone? What’s the code to unlock the phone? 

In Marana, safety education begins early, like preschool early, when she introduces firefighters as friends. When they come to the classroom, firefighters put on all their gear so kids can see that they really are just people underneath, “because one thing we never want them to be is afraid of our firefighters,” Allen said.

It’s when they put their masks on that kids get upset so they’re instructed to watch the eyes.

“Did the eyes change? No, because it’s still the same firefighter,” Allen added.

As kids progress through the grades in Marana schools they have other lessons added such as how to get out of their homes in case of fire, fire tools, what fire tools are and why kids aren’t allowed to use them, items in the home that get hot and how to not get burned and creating a home escape plan. Allen said many families don’t practice these skills at home.

“Our community members are not practicing home fire escape plans with their families,” Allen said. “These kids can get out of the school if they were in the bathroom if that alarm went off. Would a kid know what to do if they were asleep in bed?” Or on the sofa or in a closet? What if there are bars on the windows? These are issues that have to be taken into account when formulating an escape plan. Allen helps them do that.

“I don’t want to scare them; I just want to prepare them,” Allen said. 

Lastly, the public educators are finding that many kids as young as second grade are coming home alone. Parents have to work, so kids often go home alone. What should those children know? Allen said to have a backup plan. She asks what’s the plan if you’re home alone?

“A lot of them don’t have a cell phone, but a lot of them have, for example, an Alexa,” she said. “Do you know how to call 911 from Alexa? Do you know what to say in order to get Alexa to call for you? So have a plan. If not, who’s your trusted neighbor? Where will you go?”