JUVENILE FIRESETTER FAMILY RISK SURVEY (FRS)
(Instructions provided by Kenneth Fineman, et. al., 1996)

This Family Risk Survey is designed to be given to parents who have concerns about their child’s fire play or firesetting behavior or whose child has set a fire which has come to the attention of a fire department, police agency or other community agencies.  The Family Risk Survey is intended for use only as a preliminary screening tool and should be used with the Child Risk Survey to assess the child’s suitability for fire intervention education or mental health referral.

The Family Risk Survey may be administered to parents over the phone or in person.  The Child Risk Survey should be administered to the child in person and separate from their parents only after the parents or guardians have provided written informed consent for the child’s participation in the survey.

Prior to administering the Family Risk Survey, please provide the following incident and demographic information.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS & GUIDELINES TO JUVENILE FIRESETTER FAMILY RISK SURVEY (FRS)

It is a good idea to introduce the need for a fire risk screening to a child’s parents or caretakers as a means to meet the immediate safety concerns they may have about their child’s fire safety risks, or to clarify any safety concerns that others may have about their child’s fire safety risks. It is important to emphasize to the parent/guardian that their honesty is a primary means to prevent anything further fire events from happening if fire behaviors have been a problem in the past, or to stop the further development of risk factors that may lead to first time fire events. It is equally important that it is emphasized to the caretakers that people want to help them and their child(ren) to stop any dangerous fire setting behaviors and to stop future fire setting behaviors.

It may be important to your practice (e.g., private practice or your facility (e.g., school) to create some form of computer file or record of the information collected about a child’s fire information. It may be best to create a computer file folder and save each child’s responses with a designated form of identification (e.g., by year, name, etc.). A printout of the results and responses may also be important for record keeping.

There are certain limitations of the FRS that are good to keep in mind. First, the intensity of a fire setting event is not weighted in the risk of a child (e.g., a child who lights a small fire is weighted the same as a child who burns a room or house, as both are registered as a single fire event). Second, the events of the past are weighted the same as the fire setting acts of the present. Third, acts of a 3-year-old are not “normed” differently than the acts of a 17-year-old. There are not developmental norms for screening. Fourth, the follow-up of the Child Risk Survey is often problematic in that the youth tend to minimize the frequency, intensity and duration of any fire setting acts they committed as compared to adults reporting the same events. The aforementioned limitations of the FRS make it critical to have a full evaluation of a child if the person conducting the evaluation or the team of persons involved see that a child’s response are approaching some of these limitations. It is also important to note that there are other limitations and that knowledge of such limitations helps to know the blind spots to the evaluation tool. However, it is equally important to acknowledge that all screeners have limitations. The FRS is an excellent general fire risk screener that requires awareness of its particular limitations so that it can be used effectively.