Youth Firesetter Program Education

Regardless of the reason for a child setting a fire, education is perhaps the most important aspect of the program and is almost always appropriate. Because children are growing and changing daily, they respond well to educational intervention strategies. The goal is to provide fire safety education to the family so that they develop fire competent behaviors and avoid participation in unsupervised fire starts. Parents must be as much a part of the process as the child, since we can not expect the child to use fire in an appropriate manner when his/her primary role models (parents) may be demonstrating the incorrect methods several times a day. The parent may need as much, or more education than the child.

Preventative fire safety education, delivered to the children through the school system, has the greatest potential for educating firesetters. Many firesetters know how to stop, drop, and roll, crawl low under smoke, feel the door, test their smoke detector, make an escape plan, and many other survival skills. But survival skills emphasize what to do after a fire has occurred. Firesetter intervention emphasizes how to avoid the inappropriate use of fire to prevent an incident from ever occurring.