SAFER September is here!
It’s that time of year again where Kaitiaki o Ara students from all over the country focus on SADD activities for the next month to really push for raising awareness for SAFER (Student Advocates For Everyone’s Road Safety) September.
The thought of doing a month's worth of SADD activities can be pretty daunting! Read on to see how your group can have a meaningful impact that is actually achievable and doesn’t stress you out!!
Work to your strengths:
First things first have a think about who you have in your group. You may have done this exercise at the beginning of the year or you may have never done it before. Either way, looking at who is in your group and what strengths each one of you bring is super important for planning successful activities. It’s also a really great idea to record it in some way by writing it down/drawing it/filming it etc. This will set a good example for new members as they come in and will help them identify gaps.
For example: Jenny leaves her SADD group in year 13 and is a really talented artist and Jenny has been doing a lot of poster work for her group. At the end of the year, Craig is recruited for the SADD group. Craig can see that there is now a gap for someone artistic which he is excited to fill.
When you get everyone together, you could write out a list of strengths each person brings, then write the type of activities next to those strengths that might be a good fit for that skill set. This doesn’t have to be the be all and end all but it will give your group a good understanding of what your group could be good at and what you might need some extra help with.
Map out what you want to focus on:
Road safety is a pretty broad topic and it can be hard to think of everything you want to cover with your messaging. Is it sober driving or not driving whilst distracted? Perhaps it's focusing on driver licence breaches, or people driving in conditions without the appropriate experience? Either way, focusing on one thing at a time will help you put out a clear message that everyone understands. As a starting point, it's always good to begin with the six principles. These will allow you to focus on a specific area of road safety to pick an activity for. They may even be an easy win for a poster idea!
SADD’s six principles are:
Sober driving
Safe speeds
No distractions
Avoiding risks
Driving to the conditions
Building experience
Having a think about which of these principles applies to your community can help you send a clear and relevant message to your peers. If you are not sure which one applies, you could always do a quick survey to see what your peers think. You know your audience best so think about what works for them and for you.
Who, what, where, when, why, and how:
These are the key basic questions to planning anything which act as ingredients for success. In a SADD context, these can be really important to make sure you have all of your bases covered.
For who, this applies to your group but it also applies to who your group is interacting with. Have a think about who in your group is doing what. For example, Tane is editing the video, Jo is organising the food etc. When thinking about the “who” question, you also need to consider who else is involved. Which teachers/school staff do you need to talk to? Are you targeting a specific age group with your activity? Are you involving community partners and if so, who is contacting them?
For what, think about the specifics of what you will be doing. This is pretty straight forward but it's good to have it all down on paper in case you have missed something.
Once you know what you are doing and who is helping you, thinking about where your activity is going to be is a great next step. Different settings will work well for different activities. If you’ve got something big planned, outside on the field or somewhere similar might be best but what is the plan if it rains? Is there a hall or indoor space you have access to? Are there any special considerations you need to take into account such as working with your school’s covid policies around ventilation, masks and spacing?
Hopefully your group knows when everything is going down but does everyone else? How are you going to get the word out to remind people? Are you putting messages in the notices, putting up posters etc? Do people who are attending such as people from NZ Police, FENZ etc know what time they need to be there? Checking in with your school calendar to make sure there are no clashes with sports days, mock exams etc is a great way to make sure you don’t clash.
The why of the activity may be pretty clear to you and your group but is it going to be clear to everyone who is participating? Do you have time to do a practice run or to show some others what you have planned to see if they get the message?
If you put everything together you should have your how. Hopefully by the time you get to this point everything should make sense and if it doesn’t it's a great time to go back to the plan to see where your gaps are.
Fun is the key!
Enjoying what you are doing is a massive part of being a successful SADD group. The people who enjoy their jobs are far more likely to go above and beyond compared to those who don’t! Here at SADD, we are fully aware that being a group member is an optional extra for people who often have a lot of other commitments so please make sure you enjoy yourself! Hopefully by mapping out what you are good at you have been able to put yourself into a position where you can really have fun with things.
Having fun should be a really big part of being a participant in SADD activities too. At SADD we have spoken to our fair share of rangatahi and the general consensus is that the more enjoyable something is, the more likely they are to remember it. When talking about road safety, we are doing really important mahi. How you choose to convey those important messages is totally down to you. If you are able to involve people in something creative, something inspiring, something where they get to try something new or meet new people that often has a long lasting impact. Often as a young person you can be told what not to do over and over again.
For your next activity, why not try to empower people to think positively, to be proactive and to take responsibility before the bad stuff happens? Teach them a new skill, encourage them to speak out, encourage them to get involved, have fun and involve others in a community of people having positive road safety conversations.
Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate!
Feedback is something we really value at SADD because information is power!! Capturing what people thought of your activity will really help you improve for next time. Don’t forget to send your evaluations to your delivery lead as they love to share information with other SADD groups. They can also help you plan these too, it could be a google form, a quick video or audio recording or something written. The important thing here is to ensure everyone is expecting to give feedback so make sure they know before they attend, otherwise they will rush off and you won’t know how they feel!
Don’t bite off more than you can chew:
With everything that has been said above, it can be easy to get very excited about running heaps of activities! However, don’t forget that you should only be doing what you as a group have capacity for. The key is finding activities that have a big impact with as little strain on you as possible. Remember, one person having a conversation about road safety with a peer is way better than no one talking about it! Once you start a conversation, it ripples throughout the community. Think about easy ways to get the message out there with Kahoot quizzes, posters and leaflet drops. Don’t forget there is no expectation to do activities every day or week during September, even once is awesome!
Want to win cool prizes?
Make a group SADD Instagram or TikTok, start sharing messages and go in the draw to win prizes for your group! https://www.sadd.org.nz/safer-september2022
You can also use this page for heaps of inspo and activity plans. Good luck this SAFER September and don’t forget to contact your delivery lead for help, questions, inspo and to send them photos!
You can find their details here: https://www.sadd.org.nz/contact-us