From parent to regional coordinator for ARTA

Sue Kendall was first involved as a parent helping to set up a walking school bus at Gladstone Primary School in Auckland in 1999. Now, she’s the Walking School Bus Coordinator for the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA).

It’s a job that involves a wide range of activities – from organising training sessions and forums to managing a database and liaising with sponsors. One of her key roles is liaising with the road safety coordinators at Auckland’s seven city councils and ensuring the initiative continues to grow.

'Seeing the huge uptake in the programme is so rewarding,' she says. 'It’s neat to see lots of caregivers and kids walking to school, making new friends and getting exercise.'

4000 walking children

Auckland’s first walking school bus was Gladstone Primary School in Mt Albert, launched in 1999. The concept spread rapidly and within two years, 21 schools had signed on. Now, the region has more than 200 walking school buses, used by close to 4000 children. The 200^th walking school bus was launched by Minister of Transport Annette King at Onehunga Primary School in November 2006.

Sue says the great thing about walking school buses is that they’ve always come from a demand in the community. Road safety coordinators work with the schools and caregivers to help them set up a bus and keep it going.

One of Sue’s roles is to organise health and safety sessions for the bus ‘drivers’ and ‘conductors’.  She also runs a forum for caregivers once a term and contributes to a TravelWise newsletter, sent to schools once a term.

Funding for a new bus

Each new walking school bus in the Auckland region can apply to ARTA for $1500 funding, provided by Roadsafe Auckland, once the road safety coordinator and the local council’s traffic engineer have assessed and approved the route.

Sue says that the one-off grant is usually spent on things such as bus stop signs, stickers and parent manuals. After the first year, walking school buses are entitled to a $200 maintenance grant, provided they meet certain criteria (eg completing a survey).

Five tips

Sue has some tips for road safety coordinators.

1. Allow plenty of time to establish the walking school bus because there’s a lot of work involved in setting it up. Doing the ground work and getting it right at the beginning will help prevent problems down the track.
2. Always be available to caregiver volunteers and schools. Set up a way of monitoring the buses and staying in touch (eg monthly reminder letters, an email tree, a meeting once a month or term).
3. Be vigilant about safety, ensuring caregivers are well-informed about any safety issues.
4. Have practical strategies on hand to encourage more caregiver volunteers so the load doesn’t fall on the same caregivers all of the time.
5. Ensure the work of volunteers is recognised. It may be a 'reward' provided by a sponsor; a story in the local newspaper about their good work; or simply a letter thanking them.

Liability

Liability, Sue says, is an important issue that needs to be managed very carefully.

‘We’ve done a lot of work on the Health and Safety Act, and what it means for ARTA and the programme. Because we provide funding to schools, we could be liable if something happened to a child while they were using the bus.

‘As a result, we’ve set up a number of procedures to ensure health and safety matters are addressed, and caregiver volunteers are given extensive health and safety training. We’ve also clearly identified areas of responsibility.

‘Basically, it’s a shared risk between ARTA, local councils, caregivers and schools. We all need to do our bit to keep everyone safe.’

Cultural diversity

Face-to-face conversations often work best with families where English is a second language. ARTA has responded to this need by employing a facilitator of Samoan heritage to work with communities in Counties Manukau.
 
‘Whenever we have training sessions, we try to keep the documentation as straightforward as possible. For people where English is a second language, talking with them directly works much better than sending a newsletter home via the school.’

Evaluation

Every year, ARTA commissions The University of Auckland to evaluate the walking school bus programme. The latest data has been collected and will be released in March 2007. As well as a written survey, caregiver focus groups were held to find out what happens when a child outgrows a walking school bus after they’ve used it for at least three years. Do they continue walking to school or use another sustainable mode of transport? What influence has the walking school bus had on caregivers’ travel behaviour?

‘Ongoing evaluation to capture what the real challenges and rewards are for caregivers involved in running the walking school buses is vital for its continued success and expansion,’ Sue says.

Page created: 1 May 2007