In Merseyside and Cheshire West, there is a scheme called Engage that wants to hear from more ADIs.

Driving instructors are invited to work with the local Road Safety Partnership and improve their approach to topics such as drink and drugs (and many others) and driving.

Attention

The scheme has proved successful with ADIs (and young drivers), happy to pay a £25 annual membership fee. In return they are able to complete training to meet their CPD requirements and improve the service they provide.

It is also proving to be a great opportunity to make new contacts, build networking opportunities and learn more about the road safety aspects of your teaching. These regular meetings provide information about offending trends, while providing you with the opportunity to talk to novices about the topics too. There are practical demonstrations, talks and resources help you provide better coordinated training and a clearer picture of the road safety topics to pupils.

Calling you

However, ‘Engage’ is struggling to make local ADIs aware of this opportunity

This seems to be a great way of adding to your teaching skills and knowledge, and pass this on to your students.

Below is a a published piece about the scheme that was highlighted in the Young Driver Focus ’21 Report published in May:

Engage

Helping driving instructors deliver more effective road safety training

Engage was set up to provide Approved Driving Instructors (ADIs) with enhanced training and resources to use as part of the normal learning to drive process.

It brings together Cheshire and Merseyside Local Authorities, Police, Fire and Rescue Service, Merseyside Road Safety Partnership and, most importantly, ADIs. The project based on research and draws much of its design from the HERMES project – the Transtheoretical Model of Change and the higher levels of Goals for Driver Education Matrix. (Keskinen et al 2010).

RESEARCH AT THE CONCEPT STAGE OF ENGAGE FOUND: 1) Driving instructors lacked the knowledge and skills to engage students on many of the contributory factors to a collision
2) Limited training available 3) Limited resources for the driving instructor to use

ENGAGE ADDRESSES THIS KNOWLEDGE AND RESOURCE GAP BY:
1. Providing instructors with high quality training such as Learning Theory, Behavioural Change Techniques and Client Centred Learning. This gives them the confidence to deliver the Engage modules to their learners. All intervention should have such training is delivered by Ian Edwards, who helped to develop the scheme. He is an international consultant in driver education and training, and at the forefront of Coaching/Client Centred Learning.

2. Providing a range of resources that help learner drivers to develop realistic coping strategies for topics considered to be contributory factors in road traffic collisions. These include dealing with:
● Distractions
● Fatigue
● Impairment (including drugs, alcohol and medications)

● Peer pressure
● Speed
● Seatbelts

● Car maintenance
● Vulnerable road users

3. Building a community of ADIs. In February 2020, Engage held their first ‘Engage Driving Instructor Seminar’. More than 80 driving instructors from across Merseyside and Cheshire enjoyed a day packed with informative and entertaining presentations. These instructors have continued to meet online over the last year for support, share ideas and to keep their knowledge and skills up to date.

Official evaluation shows that learners have achieved “significant improvement”, going on to comment: “It is remarkable that such a short positive results.” The evaluation also found that the majority of instructors felt:

● They had altered their training methods as a result of the training
● The training had made them consider issues they had not considered pre-training
● It helped them to expand their tuition into areas they rarely covered

The project success has seen it awarded both the ‘Prince Michael International Road Safety Award’ in 2014 and the FirstCar Young Driver silver award for ‘Education & Training Initiative’ in 2015. On top of this, Engage ADIs are highly respected with great reputations across the region.

engagedriving.co.uk

[email protected] facebook – @engagedriving; twitter – @engagedriving; Instagram – engage_driving.