Helping families prepare for the worst

By Joel Wittnebel/The Oshawa Express

In emergency situations, firefighters are faced with numerous elements to consider when en route. In the event that one of those situations involves the home of a child with a disability, several other factors come into play.

For that reason, Oshawa Fire Services and Grandview Children’s Centre have teamed up to prepare firefighters and families for that very situation.

The program, dubbed Think Ahead, is the first of its kind in North America and opens up lines of communication between firefighters and the families of children with disabilities.

Grandview serves more than 5,000 children and youth with special needs every year in Durham Region, with 30 per cent of those children living in Oshawa.

“Families that have children with special needs have a lot of the same day-to-day concerns that other families have. But in addition to that, they have extra worries and concerns,” explains Lisa Wilson, communication and marketing manager for Grandview.

The program hopes to alleviate some of those concerns by allowing firefighters and families to do a walkthrough of the home, improve safety and provide the details of the child’s disability so firefighters know how to communicate, where to find them and the best practices in the event of an emergency.

“We’re very excited about it,” says Oshawa fire chief Steve Meringer. “It enables us to reach out and get to know some of the clients of Grandview and some of the special circumstances that they have in their lives in order to be able to assist them better in the event of emergency.”

Launched in Clarington in 2013, the program has already received interest in Oshawa, with several families signing up for walkthroughs.

The information obtained during the walkthrough will be stored on a fire services database that can be easily accessed by firefighters en route to a location.

“It’s really going to be a great benefit,” Meringer says. “Hopefully it’s a benefit that we will never use…it’s not that we will never need it, but in the event of an emergency, it will be sure nice to have it.”

Alongside making rescue operations easier for the firefighters and on the child, the program also allows firefighters to know any other priorities once the child has been removed safely from the home, such as assistive equipment.

Many children with disabilities rely on wheelchairs or other assistive devices to aid them with their disability, and most of this equipment is very expensive.

“When the opportunity is available for them to save some of the equipment too, that could make the difference between a child being able to communicate with their family or not, or a child being able to be mobile immediately in the situation of the emergency,” Wilson says.

The partnership has been in the works since 2012, when the Ontario Fire Marshall’s office approached Grandview about launching a fire safety program. Since its Clarington launch in 2013, the program has been recognized with a provincial fire safety award.

Wilson says the program will also be coming soon to Whitby, with hopes it will expand across the region.

Wilson explains some families have been hesitant about getting involved with the program with fears they could face fines if their home’s safety equipment is not up to par.

“A lot of families are nervous about having firefighters come and evaluate the safety in their home. They’re always a little bit nervous that it’s going to be a punitive measure, which it is never intended to be,” she says. “One of the key advantages of the Think Ahead fire safety program is it’s an exchange of information between the firefighters and the families.”

Families looking to get involved with the program can email thinkahead@oshawa.ca to sign up or visit www.grandviewkids.ca for more information.