The Firemen’s Association of the State of Pennsylvania’s SAFER Grant to enhance recruitment and retention for Pennsylvania’s fire and EMS community was kicked off at the annual state convention with a presentation and announcement regarding the program. Project Director Dr. Bill Jenaway and FASP President Sandy Cullen announced the key aspects of the program, which include:
- ‐ Four training programs to be conducted at six locations around the Commonwealth in early 2015. These include sessions on
o Developing Junior Firefighter Programs, o Leadership,
o Building Community Relations, and
o Fire Corps.The programs will then be made available via web access for subsequent review.
- ‐ The development of a Recruitment and Retention Website (currently underway) which will be released in January with related content, downloads, training programs, and links for recruiting and retaining members. All items developed as part of the original strategic plan will be included in the downloads. A collection of PSAs and related items for use by any agency will be provided as well.
- ‐ Continuation of the Scholarship programs, but now funded through the SAFER Grant. A new application will be available in 2015.
- ‐ At the conclusion of the development of all information, a CD/DVD of basic website content will be sent to each fire/EMS agency in the State Fire Commissioner/FASP database.
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‐ A speaker will be available each year at the annual conference to discuss Recruitment and Retention.
Local‐level grant program to develop your own local‐level program to recruit and retain members. The grant requests MUST be sent electronically. No hard copies will be accepted. The grants must be received by the committee by December 14, 2014 and will be awarded. Monitor the FASP website to access and submit the form.
If you believe you have a great program, PSA, or recruitment and retention tool in use today, that you think is worthwhile to place on the website for others to use, send a copy and related info to wjenaway@vfis.com for review and possible inclusion in the Pennsylvania Fire/EMS Recruitment & Retention Website.
Look for more details on the official FASP communication systems, the FASP website www.pafirefighters.org and in Pennsylvania Fireman magazine.