Along with North Yorkshire Police, staff from Harrogate Town visited Henshaws Specialist College on Monday 23rd April to deliver a workshop on how to stay safe at a football match.
Henshaws Training Officer Julia Tiplady put together a programme for the College students, aged from 16 to 25 and with a range of disabilities and special needs, to encompass a whole range of situations.The College's own workshops at the event, on Monday, looked at healthy relationships, risks, the stages of grooming and how to stay safe.
Workshops by North Yorkshire Police covered how to find someone safe if feeling threatened or uneasy; risks both online and on the telephone; the risks of drugs and alcohol and who and how to tell if a student needed to alert someone.
Harrogate Town helped with planning for a day out, looking at keeping safe in a crowd and looking after belongings. North Yorkshire Fire Service attended to share information on fire safety with the students and Henshaws staff member Ryan Middleton explained how his medical assistance dog alerts him to health risks during the night.
Head of Student Wellbeing Maggie Pattison said: “All young people are vulnerable because they are often at a difficult time of their lives as they transition from children into adults, but this is even more true of our students.
"Some may have been protected more than usual from the ‘real world', while others may simply not recognise signs of danger apparent to other people.
“We were delighted to be able to work with North Yorkshire Police and Harrogate Town to help our students to understand how to think and act to keep themselves as safe as possible.”