Chubb has worked with Westminster Borough Police (part of the Metropolitan Police) to develop and launch a training package for businesses to help protect their female employees, in – and outside – work.
Chubb Security Personnel is part of US firm UTC Fire & Security, a unit of United Technologies Corp. The initiative – called Living with Confidence – was developed from a concept piloted by Chubb last year. It has now been revised, updated and given police backing. Living with Confidence provides women with advice to prevent them from becoming victims of crime, and offers help on understanding how simple actions; being aware of one’s surroundings; and often old-fashioned common-sense, can have a dramatic impact on staying safe from harm.
What they say
“There is a danger associated with everything that we do in our lives,” explains Jackie Gregory from Chubb Security Personnel. “Even the most routine daily activities that we take for granted pose risks to our safety, security and well-being. The purpose of this new training programme is to make women aware of these risks and give them the practical advice to reduce them.”
The in-house training is divided into sections, with summaries to drive home key messages. It discusses, for example, the benefits of a ‘handbag laundry’, and conversely the dangers of carrying one’s life in one’s handbag, and the psychology that the less valuable the contents, the less one’s desire to hold onto it should one be attacked.
It looks at how one behaves in public – the use, for example, of mobile phones, and how to trust one’s instincts; in hindsight, female victims will often say that ‘something didn’t feel quite right’ and yet still they did not remove themselves from a situation or location in which they felt uncomfortable.
It explores also how to get home safely after a night out socialising (especially pertinent given the forthcoming round of Christmas parties) – the importance of always having a plan to get home before you go out, the use of minicabs, and the dangers not just of spiked drinks, but also the new phenomenon of spiked cigarettes.
What they say
Chief Insp Bernie Gravett of the Metropolitan Police, who helped develop the advice and took part in the video said: “This training package is a great initiative by Chubb offering safety advice to female members of staff in the run up to the busy Christmas period. It endorses our crime prevention messages about looking after each other when out at night, and getting home safely. We work closely with businesses to offer crime prevention and safety advice to employees, and this training package is an extra step in reaching as many women as possible across the country. This is not about spoiling people’s fun, this is about emphasising that we want people to have fun, but safely. The training is not just about behaviour; it is also about what to do if one is attacked, and how to protect oneself. Similarly it covers keeping women safe when they are out and about, how to report an incident, and the important area of domestic violence.”
“For a crime to occur there must be three things present,” Jackie Gregory of Chubb Security Personnel added: “a criminal, the opportunity, and a potential victim. Remove any one of these three, and you remove the potential for crime.”
Living with Confidence is aimed at major employers with a high number of female staff.
