A new programme aimed at tackling attacks on emergency services has launched in West Belfast.
The initiative which is being run by the Upper Springfield Development Trust thanks to the Executive Office's Communities in Transition (CIT) programme will aim to educate school children and youth groups on the importance of the emergency services and the various roles they play through a series of workshops.
This comes as recent figures show that on average, three ambulance crews are attacked each day.
Read more: Man charged following assault on Ambulance staff in Larne
Speaking to Belfast Live, paramedic Barry Costello explained that those attacks range from physical assaults, sexual assault and verbal attacks.
"These kinds of attacks on our colleagues in the Ambulance Service, the Fire Service and the Police Service have to stop and we have to do everything we can to raise awareness with the general public as to the nature of the attacks that we are facing," he said.
"Unfortunately, I think the society that we are living in today it would be unrealistic to say that we can completely stop these attacks.
"Only by raising awareness will people know that they can't assault us without incurring some kind of penalty and it is my belief that it needs to be taken more seriously by the courts as well."
Barry told us that these attacks are having a massive impact on staff morale and mental health.
"As someone who has been assaulted, I know the impact that it can have in relation to anxiety, fear of going to work, not wanting to get in an ambulance and go out to do the job that we love.
"You may have the physical assault on one night, but there is a lasting impact.
"After my assault, I had to go through intensive trauma counselling and that is not an easy thing to do. That was just to get me back in an ambulance."
Barry added that the ambulance service is "stretched beyond capacity" and these attacks are draining resources.
"An A&E ambulance is a very finite resource and when a crew is assaulted, that ambulance is taken off the road. They are unable to respond to the sickest patients in our community. Those are our cardiac arrests, our heart attacks and our stroke patients.
"Not only do these attacks impact upon staff welfare but they also impact the community and my message would be to help stop the abuse."
Seán Valente from the Upper Springfield Development Trust said that by bringing the community together, they hope to reduce these attacks on front line services.
"We have seen an increase in these attacks and we hope that by allowing people to see the human side of our emergency services that it will make them think twice.
"Today we have representatives from a variety of community groups across West Belfast here alongside representatives from our local schools and they are hearing first hand the impact of these attacks.
"We then hope to take our workshops into schools, youth clubs and voluntary organisations over the next year to allow them to hear first hand from the services."
Seán added that he sees it like a three legged stool with the fire, police and ambulance service.
"If you take one of those legs away then the stool falls," he said.
"For instance, if we have a fire crew attacked they will have to pull out of a job and that could be someone's house on fire. But they have to pull out for their own safety.
"This project is about educating our young people that if you attack the emergency services, that is an attack on your own community.
"A lot of our emergency services also carry defibrillators. Our young people could see the police or fire service flying down the road but they could be on their way as first responders to someone having a heart attack."
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