Street Pastors’ decade of listening, caring and helping in Falkirk

And the team are continuing to give up their Saturday nights to take to the town’s streets and help keep people safe as they enjoy the nightlife.

First launched in January 2010, the blue jacketed volunteers have become a familiar sight in and around the town centre as pubs and clubs close.

Their role is to help keep revellers safe, and provide comfort and re-assurance if they are in a vulnerable situation.

Working in teams of three the volunteers are out and about from 10pm on a Saturday night until around 3.30am on Sunday morning.

To mark the tenth anniversary the team are preparing to host a special celebration next month.

The birthday event will take place in Trinity Church on Friday, April 3 with Stuart Crawford from Glasgow Street Pastors as the key note speaker.

Nicky Butler, co-coordinator of Falkirk Street Pastors, explained: “There’s still about four of the original team involved.

“From what they have said, there’s been a big change in what we see.

“Originally there was a lot of de-escalating of situations.

“There was a lot of violence to be diffused and the police were often required to help.

“But as time has gone on, things have become more peaceful and we don’t see as much violence now.

“As our motto says, we’re there to listen, care and help.

“In the past the Street Pastors were out on both a Friday and Saturday night, but we are only out on a Saturday night now as it is the busier night at the weekend.”

The pastors are trained volunteers from local churches who care about their community, going out on the streets at the weekend to meet people and offer them support when it’s needed.

Their training covers many aspects including drug awareness, child and adult protection, mental health, first aid and Good News.

Currently Falkirk has a team of 13 Street Pastors, who work in groups of three, and two more are currently in training.

Nicky, who has been involved in the initiative for six years, explained that no two nights are the same.

“It can be that nothing much happens, however there have been nights that we have been busy the whole time with various things,” she said.

“A few weeks ago we went along to the taxi rank – we’ve got a good relationship with the taxi marshalls – and there was a girl with blood on her face and a gash on her head.

“She had left in a taxi and then appeared back five minutes later with blood on her and the gash.

“She wasn’t in a state to tell us what had happened. She was frozen so we gave her a space blanket and cleaned her face up.

“Her sister was with her, they had no money to get home. We were able to make sure they could get home.

“That’s why we are there, to get people home safely.

“Another night we came out the Safebase to find two men looking to fight each other.

“We were able to de-escalate it by speaking to them and their friends, calming the situation down and they left, one going in one direction and the other going the other way.”

Other stories Nicky shared included a young man who was vulnerable lying in a door way and didn’t know where he was. His mobile phone was out of battery, but after escorting him to the Safebase, the pastors were able to use a charger to get just enough charge in his phone to contact his mum so she could pick him up.

Nicky said: “She wasn’t too pleased with him, but she was delighted we had been there to help him.”

Another night the pastors came across a man asleep in a flower bed. He’d come from Edinburgh with friends for a night out, got separated from them and couldn’t remember the name of the hotel where they were staying.

“He’d been drinking and was going to sleep it off and then get the train home in the morning.

“The police weren’t really able to do anything as he wasn’t causing any bother.

“We started chatting to him, asking him when he got off the train where did he go and we started naming hotels.

“Miraculously we named the Cladhan and he said ‘that’s it’.

“We were then able to confirm that was where his friend was staying so we put him in a taxi and sent him there.

“So in the end he had a good night sleep in a hotel rather than in a flower bed!”

Falkirk’s Street Pastors have built up a strong relationship with other agencies around the town, including the police, ambulance service, taxi marshalls, door stewards and local pub and club managers.

For special events, like Easter, Hallowe’en and at Christmas, when the town is busier, they work out of the Safebase with others including the police, first aiders and the team from Change, Grow, Live.

One of the things the Street Pastors are known for are the flip flops that they hand out.

“We’re well known for our flip flops and lollipops,” Nicky continues.

“The flip flops are for the girls coming out of the clubs, but that’s changing a bit too.

“A lot are wearing more sensible footwear these days.

“But they’re for those that are still wearing the six inch heels and are unable to walk in their shoes and have taken them off at the end of the night to walk home.

“The streets of Falkirk are not that clean.

“So we have the flip flops for them. Sometimes they come rushing to us for the flip flops.”

While they are out walking the streets into the wee small hours, the teams also collect bottles and glasses and put them in the bin to prevent them from being used as weapons.

So what sort of response do the teams get while they are out on a Saturday night?

“I’m not being big headed, but they love us,” says Nicky.

“We get a lot of people that have met us before saying ‘what a fantastic job you do’.

“‘I got flip flops from you last week’, ‘hats off to you’.

“And it’s from all age groups. When people that haven’t met us before hear we’re volunteers they are blown away that people would volunteer to be out on a Saturday night from 10pm to 3.30am on a Sunday morning.

“It’s nice to hear and that’s our payment and reward, folk really appreciate what we do.”

However, Nicky said although the teams on the street are seen helping others, listening and caring, there are others behind the scenes at Street Pastors who have an important role.

“We would not go out on a Saturday without the support of our prayer partners.

“Every time that we are out we have a couple of prayer partners who are up when we are out and keep praying for our safety and that of anyone we’re going to meet.

“You have to be a member of a church to be a Street Pastor so we believe in the power of prayer.

“I would suggest that’s where a lot of our confidence comes from.

“Our prayer partners have a vital role to play and we thank them for that.”

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