Fire Chie Freddy Howell
Kings Bay, GA - Everyone Goes Home® State Advocate
With snow piles lining the perimeter of the beautiful landscape at the National Fire Academy (NFA) in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and the sun high above shining on three beautiful days (March 5-7, 2010), firefighters and fire-related personnel from all over the nation gathered to attend the Everyone Goes Home® Safety Summit. This was the second consecutive year that saw an increase in attendance for the Safety Summit. Again, this year, the main goal of the fire service members attending was "saving our own" through the Everyone Goes Home® Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives program and to educate and network with other state advocates from across the country. An additional approach to addressing these issues was also presented.
The weekend was filled with education classes and great speakers that ranged from Kelvin Cochran, U.S. Fire Administrator, Dr. Denis Onieal, Superintendent of the National Fire Academy, to a good friend, Howard Cross, and ending with Charlie Dickinson, retired Deputy U.S. Fire Administrator.
An additional idea that was identified as being an effective approach to fire safety is the "Together We Can" team approach to reducing the number of line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) in the fire service. I will share an article that I wrote concerning this very theory. One question in the article was answered in a joint panel discussion held at this year's summit with Janet Wilmoth, Fire Chief Magazine editor, Bobby Halton, Fire Engineering Magazine editor, Harvey Eisner, Firehouse Magazine editor and Timothy E. Sendelbach Fire Rescue Magazine editor. Answer: These editors do carefully consider and select the pictures that are on the front covers of their magazines and then give a description of them on the index page of the magazine.
Together we can!
This past year I had the opportunity to be the head coach of a seven and eight year-old football team and, through that experience, I used a phrase that may be recognized from the last presidential election. Political opinions aside, the phrase was a motivating tool that can be used to move others to accomplish a goal no matter what it may be. My goal was to get seven and eight year-old boys to learn to work as one efficient group to win at the game of football. To accomplish this goal, I needed patience and a tool to get these individuals to play together as a team. The tool I found was a phrase that we incorporated into our pre- and post-game pep talks. The phrase was "TOGETHER WE CAN"! During the football season, I recognized that coaching football is similar to coaching firefighters. You need a motivational tool, repetitive training, and practice. With that mindset, I thought we should we apply the "Together We Can" phrase to help promote and motivate the safety atmosphere in the fire service so we can reduce the number of LODDs.
By applying the phrase "Together We Can" to the 16 Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives, we can see how it can promote and even motivate a together (team) atmosphere. Let's look at a couple:
- Together, we can define and advocate the need for a cultural change within the fire service relating to safety; incorporating leadership, management, supervision, accountability and personal responsibility.
- Together, we can enhance the personal and organizational accountability for health and safety throughout the fire service.
As you can see with these two life safety initiatives, it not only adds a little motivation but it also joins everyone into one group and identifies who is responsible and gives us the ability to complete our goals. To see this I will break it down:
- "Together" - groups the fire service which includes the firefighters, officers, fire chiefs, fire commissioners, public safety directors, fire academies, fire colleges, fire equipment manufactures, salesman of any fire-related product, magazine publishing companies and anyone else who is associated with the fire service directly or indirectly.
- "We" - is identifying the group and allowing those individuals to take an active part in "together."
- "Can" - describes the physical and mental ability in a positive and motivational way.
One of the first steps is working on the TOGETHER aspect. As previously mentioned, TOGETHER includes all the magazine publishing companies and anyone else who is associated with the fire service. Let's take a look at one of our most valuable resources - the magazine publishing companies. Most fire departments, including ours, subscribe to almost every type of fire service-related magazine or newspaper that is available. If you stop at a fire station, no matter where it is around the country, you will see at least one fire-related magazine lying around. Inside are great articles written by fire professionals and most of them are addressing the Firefighter Life Safety Initiatives in one way or the other. However, on the front cover of some of those magazines, we notice firefighters operating at emergency scenes and occasionally there are countless safety issues we can identify. What is this picture sending to the readers? I know we shouldn't base any book or magazine on its cover, but if the old saying is correct "a picture is worth a thousand words" then the first impression and the first thousand words a reader receives doesn't always reflect what they will read inside. We, as an industry, have got to be TOGETHER with our message and be consistent. We cannot write one thing and show pictures of the opposite.
I hope the magazine publishing companies don't take offense I just want to show how we need to be TOGETHER in every aspect of the fire service and, as we are all familiar with the publications. Perhaps Henry Ford said it best: "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." Together we can reduce LODDs!