Kids in Wellington North and Minto will want to be extra mindful of their safety habits this winter.
The Mount Forest Patriots Jr. ‘C’ hockey team and Guelph Wellington EMS are teaming up for a “Partners in Safety” program to acknowledge children participating in safe practices.
The gift: a free ticket to any Patriots game this season.
Paramedics from Mount Forest, Harriston and Arthur will be keeping their eyes peeled from now until the end of the Patriots season in January for kids showing they’re safety conscious.
“We’re looking for kids that are practicing safety,” said Guelph Wellington EMS chief Stephen Dewar. “In this weather … that’s sleighing, maybe they’re wearing safety equipment, maybe they’re just doing it in a safe manner.”
The paramedics will be looking for any way youths are being safe or doing something good in the community. When a paramedic witnesses any such acts, they’ll give the child a voucher for a free Patriots ticket.
This also allows the paramedics to encourage safe behaviour for kids who may not be practicing it at the time.
“Lets say there are six kids and three of them are wearing helmets and our guys can stop and say good job here’s a card, a little reward, maybe the other three will start wearing helmets,” said Derek Bridgwater president of the Patriots and himself a paramedic.
The hope is the program will promote best safety practices and will also give the paramedics more of a presence in the community.
“It does allow the paramedics to interact more with the people in the community,” Dewar said. “And normally [when] we’re interacting with them it’s in a bad News situation and a high stress situation so this allows the paramedics to interact, especially with the kids, and get them familiar with what we’re doing and hopefully reducing some fear if they find themselves in an emergency situation.”
Bridgwater said the partnership was a good way to promote safety and encourage kids to go to Patriots games.
Paramedics will be using their discretion while performing their day-to-day duties in the community to decide which acts will get a free game ticket.
“It may get to the point where kids will come up and say ‘look I’m wearing my helmet’ and that’s good as well,” Dewar said. “It shows that they’re thinking about it.”
