The Guildford Borough Council Community Safety Wardens, have been awarded ‘Highly Commended’ in the 2009 NTRC (Neighbourhood Training Resource Centre) South East Warden Awards for their excellent ‘Partnership Working’ carried out with schools in Ash and Guildford.

Rodney Bates, Community Safety Warden Supervisor, said: “This award clearly demonstrates the ongoing positive work undertaken by the wardens and our partner agencies and it is very encouraging to see that Guildford is being recognised at a regional level.”

The annual event is organised by the Safer Guildford Partnership’s Neighbourhood Teams and uses local agencies in a series of talks held in the classroom to teach Year 2 primary school children all about different aspects of personal safety.

The school quizzes begin with speakers and colleagues from partnership agencies including: Surrey Fire & Rescue, Surrey Police and St. John’s Ambulance who work with the wardens to deliver talks and information. These include safety on fire, road, water, rail track, stranger danger and first aid before culminating in an inter-school safety quiz to test the pupil’s skills on listening and retaining knowledge.

Lesley Telford-Gillies, Community Safety Warden, said: “We are always amazed to find the children so well behaved, and it’s great to see them learning important and potentially life-saving information in such a fun way.”

The Community Safety Wardens received the award at a recent ceremony held in Oxford and the other categories included working with: young people, vulnerable people, the South East Warden Team of the Year Award and the outstanding achievement award.

Garry Jones, Community Safety Warden added: “We started running the school quizzes in Ash and they proved such a success that we have already expanded it to Guildford.“

Rodney Bates added: “There are 44 Community Safety Warden schemes currently running in the South East with approximately 500 wardens in total, so we are really pleased to be awarded ‘highly commended’ on this occasion.”