NOTTS: Powerful video shows devastation of road accidents

The film, produced by about Nottinghamshire County Council’s County Youth Arts team working with a dozen students from Vision West Nottinghamshire College powerfully promotes the critical importance of checking for traffic before crossing the road.

The video is to be shown at a forthcoming national conference attended by paediatricians, coroners, nurses, police and other professions involved in the investigation of child deaths.

The first national conference for CDOPs (Child Death Overview Panel) will view the video which will be presented by a panel member from Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children’s Board CDOP and the Chief Coroner for England and Wales will be attending as the guest speaker.

Nottinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board commissioned the project to develop the film which targets the message ‘pay attention when you cross the road’ at young people.

The Independent Chair, Chris Few, said: “The imaginative ideas and creative skills of the young people involved in this project have produced a film which delivers a hard hitting message about the possible consequences of not being alert when crossing the road.

“We particularly wanted to support young people to develop a way of getting the message of road safety across to their peers and this thought provoking film achieves this in a direct and compelling way.”

A CDROM containing the film and lesson notes is also set to be distributed to a number of local schools to help further promote the message of road safety.

Councillor Liz Plant, Vice-Chairman of the Children and Young People’s Committee, at Nottinghamshire County Council said: “We are proud that this film is to receive a national platform and delighted that is was selected to be shown at this important conference.

“It is a thought provoking film which helps to highlight the vital need to be vigilant when crossing the road and is a great example of excellent partnership working and involving students from Vision West Nottinghamshire College.”

The county council’s County Youth Arts team and members of the Nottinghamshire CDOP conducted seven focus groups with different sets of young people from across the county to develop ideas about what sort of video would help them to take notice of road safety messages. The key was to try to depict realism and offer some sort of CSI angle to the theme.

Adrian Hazzard and Jayne Lewis from County Youth Arts worked alongside students from West Nottinghamshire College to create the film with a very direct message about the issue.

Andy Dobb, from Vision West Nottinghamshire College said: ‘We were really excited when the county council’s County Youth Arts team approached us to work on this project. The performing arts department has been working hard over the last few years to provide ‘live brief’ experiences for our students to allow them to explore their skills in a real world setting.

“The students responded professionally to the brief set and the results are powerful. It’s fantastic to see their work still making an impact almost a year after they first started the process.”