Evaluation of the Crash Course March 2009 - De Montfort University

This may show itself in the Crash Course situation. If personal testimony is
important, that will be a particular success factor and it would probably only work
under certain circumstances, such as having contributors with the right sort of
experience or speakers being able to control their emotions.
In the view of the research team, the ‘mechanism’ making the Crash Course
effective is the use of a combination of facts, visual images and emotion in face to
face delivery by a team of credible people with direct experience of the effects of
road collisions. The team requires factual knowledge, stark images and a variety of
first-hand experience. Team members have to be able to show appropriate feelings
but also to control their emotions. They need to be able to engage a youth audience
and control anger about inappropriate responses. They need a context of pastoral
support for themselves as well as for the young participants. They need stable
supportive management and the vigorous backing of a multi-agency partnership. The
Crash Course also needs to adhere to the principles shown from research about the
circumstances that make fear-based messages effective in risk reduction.
The core content file of the Crash Course should be revisited and updated. It is
possible that team members could become too familiar with the material with long
practice and the essence of the educational messages and methods needs to be
captured for future transfer elsewhere. Thereafter copyright should be taken on this
effective pattern of intervention so that the essential mechanism can be preserved
and replicated. Fidelity is a major issue for successful social interventions. While the
Crash Course content remains an informal arrangement, there is a danger of
attempts to replicate it without some of its essential ingredients.
It is tempting to think that the Crash Course could only be successful with the
personalities of the present team involved. These individuals are undoubtedly
talented and committed but there is no evidence in this study to suggest that they are
irreplaceable or that the basic mechanism could not be transferred elsewhere. It is
essential that new personnel are recruited to the team as a matter of priority. Failing
that this effective intervention is certain to die out in time and its coverage will be
necessarily limited. There is no spare capacity within the current team strength to
deliver more and demands are increasing for further presentations to adults.
The responses of adult stakeholders and the young people themselves enable a
‘person specification’ to be drawn up of the type of person likely to succeed as a new
member of the Crash Course delivery team or of a team developed elsewhere in the
country. The criteria would include being:
• Confident
• Articulate
• Able to speak clearly and adjust to various levels of understanding and use
layman’s terms
• Non-judgemental
• Willing to communicate with all ages 16 to 70
• Liking young people and regarding them positively
• Having direct experience with road traffic collisions or their victims in some
respect; knowledge of the subject
• Able to convey personal experience, feeling and emotion without ‘breaking up’
• Able to take constructive criticism
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