Virginia Department of Fire Programs

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Virginia Department of Fire Programs
Virginia Fire Marshal Academy
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Public Education in Virginia

• What is happening with
• Public Education ?

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What is Public Education?

• How do we define Public Education?
• is it
• a fire truck visiting a school?
• a fire extinguisher program?
• a visit to a senior center?
• a fire department that checks alarms?

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It is!

• Public education is defined by the jurisdiction
  and the people that they serve. The needs of the
  people, the commitment to meeting those needs and
  the resources (people, time money) define what
  the scope of education for that area.

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So what is an educator?

• A person that makes the commitment to help others
  by sharing information that will make their life
  better.
• This person may be in a career position assigned
  duties as an educator or they may choose to
  volunteer their time and talents or may take on
  additional duties as they see the need.

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Educators

• Educators are people with really big hearts that
  set a goal of helping others help themselves
• They are not out there to do for others as much
  as they are to teach them how to be able to do
  for themselves

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Who is our audience?

• Preschoolers
• A high risk group
• School age children
• Elementary
• Middle
• High school
• College students

• Parents of children
• Businesses
• Civic groups
• Service organizations
• Seniors
• Anyone who is willing to listen and learn to
  protect themselves

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What are the topics we teach?

• Fire safety
• Cooking
• Escape planning
• Burn prevention
• Burn treatment
• Candle
• Alarms
• Smoke
• CO
• Heat

• Emergency preparedness
• Disaster planning
• Water safety
• Child passenger safety
• Traffic
• Gun safety

The list goes on
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Challenges

• Time in today's society everyone is busy. We
  have to find a way to catch their attention and
  make them aware of safety issues they can
  address. People want drive up convenience, they
  want to pull up to the window load up on safety
  if its convenient and drive away.

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Someone else has that taken care of

• Who is responsible for the safety of the people?
  Ask about safety and most people say its built
  in. My home has smoke alarms or my child rides
  in a safety seat or someone will let me know when
  I need to leave the building. They assume that
  it wont happen to me so I do not need to plan
  for it.

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Emergency services does a great job of rescuing
people

• Dial 911 and I get the fire dept, police dept,
  rescue squad and anyone else that I need..
• It all goes back to that drive up/call in
  service. Someone else will deal with it.
• Educators teach people how to help themselves, to
  prevent the injuries and minimize the severity of
  the problem

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Where have we been?

• In years past we have taught Public Educator
  Level 1, Communicating with Children and Juvenile
  Firesetter Level 1 and 2 to our customers
• These are the basic level programs to educate the
  educator, the firefighter and the person dealing
  with juvenile firesetters

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What do we currently have to offer?

• The NFPA 1035 Standard for Professional
  Qualifications for Public Fire and Life Safety
  Educator guides much of what we offer.
• There are 6 parts to the NFPA 1035 certification
• Public Educator 1, 2, 3
• Juvenile Fire Setter 1, 2
• PIO

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Public Educator 1, 2 and 3

• These Virginia programs are written to the 2005
  NFPA 1035 standard
• We are one of the few in the nation with 1035
  Public Educator 1 and 2 written to the current
  NFPA standard
• Level 1 is being taught
• Level 2 is being piloted
• Level 3 is under development

1035 - 2005
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• North Carolina gave us a copy of their Public
  Educator 1 program when we were in the early
  stages of writing our program.

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We also have

• Juvenile Firesetter Intervention Specialist Level
  1 and Level 2
• These are National Fire Academy courses that have
  been handed off to Virginia.

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PIO

• We are looking at various options for meeting
  this part of the standard.
• This will be addressed after we get the Public
  Educator 3 in place

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Other training

• We do have other programs that are not 1035
  specific but still fall under the Public
  Education umbrella

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Communicating with Children

• This is a Virginia course developed by VDFP/VFMA.
  Originally it was an 8 hour course but was
  adapted to be taught in 4 hours.
• It is designed for the station firefighter to
  give them the basics of Public Education without
  putting them through a 3 day course
• Designed to give them a taste of public
  education, get them interested in taking more
  training

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Communicating with Children

• This course is taught in many departments both
  career and volunteer, some are offering it in
  recruit school
• We offer a train the trainer for this program
  that gives departments an in house instructor
  to teach the course when needed as well as
  adjuncts that teach the course for the Division
  offices

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Play Safe Be Safe training

• This is a Childrens Fire Safety Education
  Program designed for children 3-5 years of age
• This is one of the High Risk age groups for fire
  injury and fatalities
• The kits allow the child care facilities to
  provide fire safety on a regular basis and
  invite the fire departments in to" wrap up the
  messages that have been delivered

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• The Virginia Department of Health has obtained a
  number of the kits through a grant and we are
  able to give a kit to each child care facility
  that attends training
• We team up with the local fire department to
  offer training and provide networking time for
  the child care providers and the fire departments

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Training aids

• We have an extensive collection of training aids
  which allow the students hands on practice in
  the classroom

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Training aids

• included are various videos and DVDs which we
  share with our students during class
• Also items that can be used by educators, some
  are low cost or available from suppliers or
  partners at no cost

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Our newest training aid

• Sparky and Pumper are the newest training aid. We
  are able to give the students hands on training
  on operating a remote control device and key
  points on operating in crowds.
• Sparky is a big hit wherever he goes and we will
  use him to encourage departments to acquire one
  for their programs and train them in effective
  use of remote controlled devices.

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More items

• We carry a set of FF gear and air pack to
  demonstrate the proper way to teach children
  about firefighters
• We use materials that are readily available to
  show students where to find resources to teach
  with

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Tool Box Toy Box

• This is simply a toolbox with various items in it
• Hand tools
• Screwdriver, hammer, wrench etc
• Toys
• Items the children will recognize as toys
  stuffed animals, small creatures etc
• Lighters and matches (can be props)
• These are used with the other tools to represent
  things that adults use

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Matches and lighters are tools for adults

• By using the Tool box Toy box we can demonstrate
  the difference between tools (for adults) and
  toys (for children)
• Many times children do not understand the
  difference or the dangers
• We also use this training aid for adults, to
  teach and remind them not to leave matches and
  lighters where children can get them

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Our portable storeroom

• Because we provide training to students all over
  the commonwealth we use a trailer. It is
  transported to the various class sites and gives
  us the ability to use whatever tool is needed for
  class along with having all the class supplies in
  it

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Time for the numbers
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• Many of our public education classes are now
  included in local jurisdictions career
  development programs
• Some people are taking classes to prepare
  themselves for a Public Educator job

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• Some take the classes because they believe that
  its important to protect lives and property.
• Amazingly enough thats what Public Safety is all
  about, saving lives and protecting property.
  There is no better way to do that than prevent a
  fire or injury from happening

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Who else is out there?

• No one can do it alone, we are a resource for
  various groups to provide the best
  training/information available.
• VFIRS Fighting Fire with Facts
• Webpage - downloadable materials

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Stakeholder group

• Virginia Fire and Life Safety Coalition
• This is a group of educators from across the
  state
• They review our programs and provide assistance
  with updates
• These are some of the primary customers of the
  Public Education section

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Other groups

• Virginia Department of Health
• Community Injury Prevention Group
• This group is working on a 5 year plan for injury
  prevention in Virginia with a CDC grant
• VDFP has people working with this group

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VDEM

• Virginia Department of Emergency Management
• As educators we are often asked to deliver
  programs that incorporate Disaster planning. VDEM
  is a resource that we may go to for materials and
  information.

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NFPA

• This organization is recognized as a leader in
  the fire service
• They recently formed a Public Educators Network
  and the VFMA has a member that was selected to
  represent Virginia on this national panel

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One of the many things VDFP is working on

• Public Fire and Life Safety Education program
  statewide
• We are well on our way to meeting this goal by
  providing the training and meeting the needs of
  our customers
• We do this by training and being a resource to
  our customers, our goal is to support their
  Public Education efforts

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VDFP programs

• Get Alarmed Virginia
• Smoke alarm installation and education campaign
  Administered through local agencies so that
  program is tailored to each community's resources
  and needs Using a grant program Virginia Fire
  departments apply for and receive alarms to
  distribute in their jurisdiction

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More programs

• Be Fire Safe Grants
• The purpose of this grant program is to provide
  equipment (i.e. CO alarms) to local
  jurisdictions and distribution to fire
  departments and organizations involved in fire
  safety projects in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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Recent events

• Virginia Beach in an effort to balance their
  budget considered eliminating their life safety
  office.
• 4 educators and a supervisor
• They felt that the front line folks and
  volunteers could make up for what the staff was
  doing.

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• Using their documentation and data from the VFIRS
  system the VB staff was able to document the
  statistical benefit to the Virginia Beach
  community in lives and property that had been
  saved by their efforts

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A bit of history

• Virginia Beach had the first Life Safety office
  in the state formed 35 years ago
• Their staff are always on the cutting edge of
  public education
• They had statistics that showed a lower average
  fire loss, fire injuries and fire deaths than
  comparable areas

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End result

• Virginia Beach kept the Life Safety Office intact
  they decided that the results achieved were just
  too good to give up
• The data VDFP collected over the years assisted
  them in making the comparison and show how
  effective they were
• We were also able to pull together the public
  education community to support the VB team

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Another success story for Public Education

• The City of Petersburg had a bad situation, fire
  deaths and injuries were challenging the
  emergency services.
• Chief TC Harriston called on VDFP for assistance

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• We responded with a class for company level
  officers on fire inspection procedures.
• VDFP also provided a funded Public Educator 1
  class that was hosted by Petersburg and had 17
  Petersburg fire personnel in it.

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• The Petersburg members networked with other
  educators in class and gained ideas/information
  from the instructors on how to make their
  programs more effective
• They were also given information on joining the
  Home Safety Council Literary Network to provide
  fire safety material to the residents of
  Petersburg

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Measurable results

• Achieving measurable results takes time and
  effort
• Without proper planning it is not effective
• When the safety of our residents is the goal it
  is worth the time and effort that is used

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VDFP making it happen!

• Our Mission In cooperation with our public and
  private partners as one team with one voice
  achieve excellence in everything we do through
  effective communication, coordination, and
  resource management.
• Our Vision To be the internationally recognized
  and trusted leader in providing fire and
  emergency services support to communities
  throughout Virginia.

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Just a quick question?

• Have you checked your smoke alarms this month?
  They cannot protect you if they are not in
  working order.
• Check them monthly, change the battery at least
  yearly and vacuum them out regularly.
• Have an escape plan and practice it, the lives of
  you and your family members may depend on it

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Thank you for your time!

• Are there any questions?