Southern California Fire Prevention Officers

PUBLIC EDUCATION COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes – 1/13/04

San Bernardino County Fire Department

PRESENT:

Jill Posadas- Arrowhead Regional Medical Center

Martìn- Carlsbad Fire Department�

Nancy Kidd- Chino Valley Fire Department

Brenda Emrick- Downey Fire Department

Kelley Larson- Rancho Cucamonga Fire Department

Penni Overstreet-Murphy- San Bernardino County Fire Department

WELCOME :

Penni welcomed the group to San Bernardino County Fire Department.

PROGRAM:

This was a very informal meeting to get organized for the new year so no program was presented.

BUSINESS MEETING:

• The California Fire Prevention Institute workshop will be held at the Rancho Santa Barbara Marriot this year (previously held in Monterey). The training is scheduled for March 15-19, 2003 at the Marriott. The conference will include four tracks: management, technical; code; and public education. Two courses (crisis oriented for seniors and children) from the National Fire Academy will be offered. Wednesday, March 17^th will be Vendor Day.
• The California Juvenile Firesetter Coalition is a newly formed nonprofit group. Officers have been established and they are beginning to recruit members. There is an annual membership fee of $25. The Orange County Fire Authority started this coalition with grant funds and they are working with Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) for data collection and record keeping of juvenile firesetters. The next meeting is January 15^th in Escondido at 10:00 a.m. (the 3^rd Thursday of the month).
• Southern California Risk Watch Coalition meetings are held at Harbor UCLA REI. The next meeting is scheduled for January 15^th at 9:30 a.m.
• On January 31^st San Bernardino County Fire Department will be hosting a Risk Watch training workshop from 9 am – 2 pm. This is a teacher workshop designed to give an overview of the injury prevention program.
• Drowning Prevention Symposium will be held in conjunction with the Injury Prevention Conference, April 14-16, 2004. The first day of the workshop will begin mid-afternoon with a keynote speaker followed by the first breakout session and then a networking reception with vendor exhibits in the evening. On Thursday (April 15^th), the activities include breakout sessions and a poolside media event along with a motivational speaker.

ROUNDTABLE:

• Jill Posadas (Arrowhead Regional Medical Center) is been tirelessly working on getting things in order for the Inland Empire Chapter of the Burn Institute. It is still in the developmental stages, but they have been established as a non-profit with By-Laws written and Board Members established.
• Martìn Aguilar (Carlsbad) is working toward his goal of approaching teens with wildfire safety.
• Nancy Kidd (Chino Valley) is in the middle of Risk Watch and says that her biggest challenge is getting teachers to continue participating in the program. She is also faced with schools in her district teaching both traditional and year round, but some of the year round may be going back to traditional school years. She did have a success story that involved a student that had been through Risk Watch (Kindergarten through 2^nd grade). He was riding his bicycle when he was struck by a truck. Luckily he was wearing his bicycle helmet and he only suffered minor injuries.
• Larry Hernandez (Riverside County Office of Education) is teaching the Natural Disasters Risk Watch training to 100 child care providers as well as doing pre-home inspections for new child care providers. A conference hosted by Children’s Network of San Bernardino County on February 3^rd at the Ontario Convention Center will focus on wildfires and safety.
• Brenda Emrick (Downey) has a CERT class coming up. She is also creating a CERT Junior program that will be a 10-week summer camp involving various departments within the city organization.
• Kelley Larson (Rancho Cucamonga) has been busy with emergency preparedness activities and cost recovery efforts following the October wildfires and December floods.
• Penni stated she had received her safety trailer and would be having her first teacher class that is joint with Temecula Fire on Saturday 1/31/04. She provided everyone with a "save-the-date" postcard for the National Drowning Conference that will be in April in Palm Springs.

NEXT MEETING:

Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - Meeting starts at 10:00 a.m. at Chino Valley Fire.