volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention strategy

The inability of a volunteer firefighter who has children to respond to fire calls if they donot have child care arrangements, which in turn places increased pressure on othervolunteers;Volunteer firefighters who become parents and begin to have child care needs, whomight otherwise leave the department over child care concerns.A childcare plan may also encourage spouses to join the fire department, knowing that theirchildren will be taken care of in the event that both spouses are called for a fire.Several options exist for establishing a childcare program, including:Establishing child care provision by the department, using either paid staff or volunteers;Engaging volunteer daycare workers in the fire department on an on-call basis;Partnering with community groups (such as religious organizations) to provide child care;Forming a voluntary support network comprised of volunteer firefighters and/orneighbours;Integrated as an ongoing activity of a spousal support network.Child care can be marketed as a volunteer opportunity for stay-at-home parents and spouses offirefighters. It should be positioned as a way to be involved with the local fire department (andgive back to the community) without the danger of fighting fires.The method for child care chosen by the department necessarily depends on the size of boththe community and fire hall. Regardless of the childcare program, volunteer police informationchecks and child welfare checks should be used for all child care providers, to protect childrenand ease parents‟ minds.13. Establish diversity policies in the fire department.Diversifying the demographics of Alberta‟s fire halls has become an important issue. Whileundertaking targeted recruitment efforts to diversify the firefighter base, it is important torecognize that some barriers to recruitment might be overcome by implementing and publicizingdiversity policies. These policies would outline that discrimination and harassment are nottolerated by the fire department, and include incident reporting and disciplinary actionprocedures.The creation of such policies is consistent with many other modern workplaces. Implementingand following these policies enhances the fire department‟s public reputation as a professional,open and community leading organization. This, in turn, assists in recruiting volunteerfirefighters from non-traditional groups.Accompanying Tool:Sample Diversity PolicyVolunteer Firefighter Recruitment and Retention Strategy & ToolkitPrepared by Volunteer Alberta for the Alberta Fire Chiefs’Association22