Creating a legacy of CO heroes

Every year there are around 40 deaths caused by CO in England and Wales, this highlights the relatively low awareness of the causes and consequences of CO poisoning and this in part is demonstrated by the proportion of homes that do not have a CO alarm installed.

Why we’re working together

We believe it’s important to educate young people on the dangers of CO and how to keep themselves and their families safe from harm, which is why we work with a number of partners to create fun, engaging and innovative ways to teach children about CO in a way that they will understand and share this knowledge.

Extensive research also demonstrates that adults are more likely to take positive action (or change) when their child asks them to (rather than other adults, even those seen as experts in their field). Therefore, we are continuing to provide education to schools and universities.

How we’re working together

Continuing from the success of years one to three, year four has seen us directly educate 134,489 children on the dangers of CO.

Educating primary school children through Safety Seymour and the CO Crew

We continue to work with Bonanza Creative to run our successful schools education programme with our cuddly caped CO Hero, Safety Seymour, educating children in years two and three and Mimi and Loz in the CO Crew continuing their quest to educate year five and six children through an interactive learning experience and solidifying previous learnings from Safety Seymour. They also deliver our whole school assembly which provides children with an introduction to CO.

To help spread the message further, we have worked with Crucial Crew to develop a fun and engaging 12-minute CO education session, using the CO Crew, where the children move from one topic to another in speed dating style set up.

A true crime inspired workshop for key stage 3

This year we’ve worked with Bonanza Creative to develop an in-depth classroom-based CO session, aimed at secondary school children. It is based on an investigative crime workshop where children need to solve a ‘whodunit’ mystery. The pilot will be rolled out across 12 schools and aims to educate 1,080 children.

Teaching children using Minecraft – an innovative approach

Our partnership with Skewb Limited explores an innovative approach to learning about CO through Minecraft, offering an alternative to the conventional classroom setting and reaching those neuro-distinctive children. This year we developed a single player module in addition to the teacher-led module to engage and reach more children.

Project impact and learning

Our programme continues to be a huge success as we continue to educate in such a fun and engaging way that children and teacher love.

By offering free sessions to schools, it means we are able to educate children on a subject that is not currently taught within the UK curriculum.

It means that these children will go on throughout their life into adulthood knowing and understanding the risk of CO and how they can protect themselves. A lifelong safety message that they can continue to pass on to family. We continue to develop our school education programmes, making sure they remain current and engaging for the children.

During 2024/25, we received 532 survey responses following a school session and a 100% of teachers said they are likely or very likely to rebook a further session. Feedback also suggests that somewhere between 60-80% of households take some form of positive action to reduce the harm of CO.

Connie’s story

Connie saved her grandma from CO poisoning following school CO safety session Connie, age 10, attended one of our Crucial Crew workshops with St Mary’s RC Primary School in Eccles, where she learnt of the dangers of carbon monoxide from The CO Crew. Following the session, Connie and her classmates were given a carbon monoxide alarm to take home.

As they already had two CO alarms at home, Connie gave the alarm to her grandmother, Pauline, an act which saved her grandma’s life.

Two days later the alarm went off and Pauline called the National Gas Emergency Service. A Cadent engineer visited her home and discovered CO was leaking from her cooker.

Pauline had been suffering with headaches, fatigue and dizziness before the alarm went off, but had not associated these symptoms with CO poisoning. She had visited her GP who, even after tests, couldn’t find anything wrong.

Pauline started feeling better immediately after the faulty cooker was removed. She said she was lucky Connie attended the workshop otherwise ‘who knows what would have happened?’.