12,000 children as young as nine to be trained in bleed kits each year

Children as young as nine will be trained in how to use bleed kits. The scheme to train up to 12,000 children a year comes as part of efforts to prevent knife crime from taking more lives in Bristol and the wider region.

Avon and Somerset Police confirmed that they are working with Lifeskills to educate children and vulnerable adults in important life skills. This also includes training in bleed kits, designed to stop “catastrophic bleeding”.

Chief Inspector Mike Vass, the knife crime lead at Avon and Somerset Police, said that training children as young as nine years old is a good thing and can provide reassurance to communities across the region. Chief Inspector Vass spoke to Bristol Live at the launch of a new bleed kit at Castle Park yesterday (Wednesday, May 22).

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He said: “We are focussing on children in year five and above as they are the most vulnerable. The hope is to reassure young people and also the communities they live in to make their area a safer place.

“Bleed kits do so much good, we’ve installed nearly 300 bleed kits across Bristol, Avon and Somerset since we started installing the kits seven months ago. We are trying to make sure that everyone can look after one another.”

This has led some to question whether teaching primary school children about bleed kits is a form of scaremongering and whether it just frightens children. Chief Inspector Vass denied that it is scaremongering and said: “There is already so much going around about knife crime.

“There are lots of news articles talking about knife crime. There is a lot on social media that children are being exposed to.

“There is lots of anxiety around violence and the bleed kits provide reassurance. The educational aspect is essential to tackle knife crime.”

Together for Change

A bleed kit was installed on a post in Castle Park, opposite the Galleries, in partnership with HeartSafe and the NHS South West. This comes as Operation Sceptre took place last week to take as many knives off the streets and into surrender sites, and Knife Crime Awareness Week takes place this week.

Bristol Live launched the “Together for Change” campaign earlier this year in a bid to help end the impact of knife crime on Bristol. We joined forces with other media organisations, community leaders, charities and more to say enough is enough.

Young people are going to school “afraid and wary” of each other according to a Bristol mentor and boxing coach. Police are also concerned with underage teenagers buying dangerous knives, something which has been confirmed as a priority for police forces around the UK.

Readers of Bristol Live also spoke out, calling for stricter punishments for carrying knives and questioning whether surrender sites are actually doing much good for Bristol. Some commenters called the surrender bins “ridiculous” whilst another said that knife carriers will “laugh” at the bins.

Chief Inspector Vass said: “In the last eight years we’ve taken more than 5000 knives off the streets because of the surrender sites. These dangerous knives are created to cause damage to someone.

“The surrender sites won’t stop knife crime, it is about preventing people from being stabbed by taking a potential deadly knife off the street. If only one person is saved by a knife taken away, it means that the knife crime prevention is a success.”

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