Dominic Pearson, Maria Merrick, Amie Dent and Shane Blampied
Fire-related offences are costly in human and financial terms. Fire education is widely used with juveniles and with adults in forensic psychiatric settings; however, with…
Abstract
Purpose
Fire-related offences are costly in human and financial terms. Fire education is widely used with juveniles and with adults in forensic psychiatric settings; however, with prison/probation clients there has been a lack of focus on its potential. This study asked participants of a structured fire education programme for adults how they experienced it and its impact on their feelings about firesetting.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants were 15 programme completers, including ten males and five females. All were adults that had attended the programme during their sentence, either in the community or whilst in custody.
Findings
Using an inductive thematic analysis this study interpreted the following themes: a supportive and responsive approach, impactful learning materials and methods, a new way of thinking, and picking up the pieces. This study proposes that the intervention may activate change through its powerful methods including fact-based arguments and support from legitimate experts.
Practical implications
Firesetters’ Integrated Responsive Educational Programme (FIRE-P) is a novel example of a specialist structured fire education programme for adult firesetters. This is the first paper to outline its structure and content. Understanding how change occurs in FIRE-P has implications for intervention design and delivery with this client group.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first qualitative study of a structured fire education programme for adults and provides researchers and practitioners with insight into the ingredients of a successful fire education programme.
Details
Keywords
Dominic Pearson, Samuel Hayward and Shane Blampied
In intervening to prevent recidivism by adult firesetters, there is a dearth of standardised interventions and relatedly of controlled outcome evaluations. Although education is a…
Abstract
Purpose
In intervening to prevent recidivism by adult firesetters, there is a dearth of standardised interventions and relatedly of controlled outcome evaluations. Although education is a common firesetter intervention, it is unclear if this changes behaviour of adults; a research situation the current study aimed to address.
Design/methodology/approach
The rate of actual fire recidivism of participants of a standardised educational programme was compared using Cooke’s (1989) equation to expected rates based on the firesetting history of 93 referrals.
Findings
Results indicated a significant large effect for the difference between the frequencies of expected and actual firesetting re-offences.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of the one-group pretest–posttest design are discussed with respect to potential confounds.
Practical implications
This paper adds to the literature on adult firesetter interventions and lends support to the use of fire education to prevent fire recidivism. It provides the first empirically validated example of a structured education programme for adult firesetters. Of interest to services piloting new intervention programmes, it reports an operationally efficient methodology for preliminary evaluation.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first reported outcome study of a fire safety education programme for adults. The methodology adopted represents a means of preliminary evaluation in safety-critical areas where traditional evaluation designs are infeasible.