By G. Crawford Wiestling,
Everyone Goes Home State Advocate, Minnesota

Fire Service Leaders continually stress the need for bringing about cultural change within the fire service relating to safety, among other things and that firefighters need to be empowered to stop unsafe practices. These two initiatives are defined within the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives. Grass root local level programs need to be developed to spread the word, implant these two very important messages and initiate the thought process of a firefighter to think about his or her own safety.

Lets start with the young adult thinking about becoming a firefighter or the individual who is just joining a fire department either career or volunteer. This is the time to " hit a home run "with life safety issues. The time to implant the seeds that you need to protect yourself first or you will not be able help those who are in need of your services. One fire department has developed a program aimed squarely at the young recruit and young people thinking about entering the fire service.

West End Fire & Rescue of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania has for years operated a junior firefighter program as a recruitment tool. Several years ago current chief Randy O'Donnell while watching a television program came up with the idea of developing a program to feed the department's junior firefighter organization. The program is called, "A Childs Dream Weekend". This program invites young people between the ages of 11 and 13 years of age to spend a weekend in an active volunteer fire station with all the action and activity of the fire department including a Saturday night sleep over. These young people both male and female train, work, sleep and eat with the duty fire fighters. This year Chief O'Donnell initiated as part of the program a training session on the "Courage To Be Safe." So Everyone Goes Home". As a States Advocate for the Everyone Goes Home Program we developed a hands-on roll playing presentation aimed to provide a solid impact on the young people and the junior firefighter to think about their own safety when addressing life in the fire service and on emergency situations.

The Courage To Be Safe training involves an instructor or an officer who describes a fire incident scenario with the use of simply made props. In this case, two large pieces of cardboard and a magic marker were used to draw a fire situation. A duty firefighter in full turn out gear and a junior or prospective firefighter were teamed together. As they approached the incident scenario drawn on the cardboard panels, the duty firefighter would give a command or instruction to the junior member. The young firefighter would then be instructed to evaluate the instruction to determine if the requested evolution was safe or if he or she could safely carry out the requested evolution. After the training was completed each junior and prospective firefighters was given a small "Everyone Goes Home" sticker obtained from the National Fallen Fighters Foundation. These stickers where placed on the back left side of the young firefighters helmets for constant display to constantly remind them when working in groups or teams to have the Courage To Be Safe. It works and it made an impact on all the firefighter present. Even the regular duty firefighters were impacted because they were involved in something new. Through out the weekend you would hear the duty firefighters who were instructing the junior and prospective firefighters talk about safety to the young recruits.

Programs relating to the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives can be fun. All you need is a little creativity and initiative. West End Fire & Rescue plans to make this program part of their regular training to remind everyone to have the Courage To Be Safe.