Safety conscious youngsters were today presented with prizes for designing eye-catching posters for the Grampian Safe Team.

Aberdeen Football Club has been supporting the initiative for several years and Dons defender Ritchie Byrne presented the winners of the Grampian Safe Team Awards with their certificates, book vouchers and tickets to an Aberdeen home fixture.

Grampian's Safe Team is a partnership of the emergency services, other agencies and private companies who have joined forces in an attempt to make school children think about safety.

The project, which is aimed at increasing children's awareness of the dangers they face in everyday life, has been running for 16 years and in 2007 more than 1,500 primary seven school children attended classes where they gained 'hands on' experience in everyday situations including - fire safety, emergency call procedures, water safety and internet safety.

The winning Safe Team posters will be used within schools to promote the scheme.

AFC's head of youth and community, Len Taylor, said: "We are delighted to support this scheme which we view as vital in helping raise children's awareness of everyday dangers.

"We are one of many companies which have pledged support and it is vital for organisations to become involved to ensure the Safe Team can reach as many youngsters as possible."

Inspector Janice Innes of Grampian Police added, "The multi-agency Safe Team group are delighted that Aberdeen Football Club continue to support this event.Their commitment to supporting community initiatives is commendable and in this instance helped to make a truly memorable day for the winners of the poster competition.The poster competition is intended to help consolidate the learning from the children's visit to Safe Team, and the winning entries truly met that objective."