The year 11 fit2drive workshop – from evidence-Based research to a new program

This paper describes the new Fit2Drive (F2D) Year 11 workshop, how it was developed, and the key lessons and challenges learnt during the development process. The development process illustrates how a behaviour change program can be developed from evidence-based research into a successfully delivered secondary school education program.
The F2D Year 11 workshop concentrates on personal road safety and responsibility, building resilience and providing strategies so students can become safer on the road, particularly as passengers.
This carefully designed peer facilitated workshop includes group discussions, using scenarios to explore strategies to keep young people and their peers safe, role plays to support the development of problem solving skills that lead to safe behaviours, and development of personal passenger safety plans and approaches to promoting road safety across the school.
The F2D workshop development translated the findings from the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety – Queensland’s (CARRS-Q) research review in terms of priority road safety messages especially for passengers, peer-led discussion issues and how to enact behaviour change in a school setting, to a behaviour change program in action. The development of the curriculum involved input from road safety and educational experts from road safety agencies, Dynamic Outcomes, the F2D Foundation and CARRS-Q.
The paper provides an overview of the resulting workshop logic model and curriculum. The curriculum was trialled in three schools and improvements were made after each trial, using the feedback from the F2D peer facilitators and staff and road safety and educational experts.
Feedback on the new workshop has been very positive from students, F2D peer facilitators and the F2D Foundation. An evaluation plan accompanies the roll-out of the workshop to all Victorian schools.