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Positive action making a difference |
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Equalities Adviser for Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service Mary Thompson explains how the service is making strides in fire prevention by forging ever-closer links with the community
FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICES HAVE MADE great strides over the last few years to really get to know their local communities. We are no longer a service that waits for the bells to go down – instead we realise how important prevention and community involvement is. In recent times fire services have been working hard to promote the role of the modern firefighter. Of course we will always need a frontline response to deal with emergency incidents, but now a significant amount of time is spent carrying out community safety activities.
Community safety colleagues in Hertfordshire have identified those groups of people most at risk from fire, and work to raise awareness and make sure our services are available to everyone. Hertfordshire has community safety coordinators who are really making a difference in their communities. We are working hard to deliver fire prevention advice to groups of people we have not previously proactively targeted. This sort of outreach work is starting to pay off as we are meeting more people face to face than ever before. Recently, one of our co-ordinators received an award from The Royal National Institute for the Deaf for his work with people who have hearing impairments. Another co-ordinator has made excellent links with the traveller and gypsy communities and has been able to fit smoke alarms in some of their homes. But community involvement is not only beneficial for prevention initiatives. In Hertfordshire we have held a number of positive action events to promote the role of a firefighter to people who may not have previously considered a career in the Fire Service. It is important for us to have a diverse workforce so we can draw upon different people’s experiences.
Offers of Employment
Organisations are allowed to carry out ‘positive action’ work if they can demonstrate that within the previous 12 months, persons of a particular sex or racial group are considerably under-represented. (Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and Race Relations Act 1976).
Positive action initiatives can be in the form of encouragement to apply for a particular job or access to training for a particular job. It can only be undertaken up to the point where someone makes an application and the opportunity to apply must be open to all. Applicants must go through the same recruitment and selection process and must achieve the same level in all tests and assessments. Offers of employment can and will only be based on merit. Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service have held a number of positive action events over recent years. We use the event to introduce people to the work of a modern firefighter and the rigours of the selection process. Through the positive action days we introduce people to role models, for example women firefighters or people from minority ethnic communities. We are specifically targeting three groups of people through our positive action events and ahead of our recruitment drives. Firstly, we are trying to encourage those people already in employment who are thinking about a change of career.
The second group we are hoping to reach is young people who are still in school but beginning to think about their career prospects. We are in the process of producing a positive action DVD, which features a number of firefighters. The DVD acts as a careers guide and introduction to the Fire Service. Four of our neighbouring fire services are also supporting the DVD and some of their firefighters will appear in the film. We hope the film will bust the myth and stereotypes some people still have, ie that you have to be white and male to be a firefighter. The DVD will go out to careers advisers in schools, colleges and job centres across the region and the plan is to show the DVD in shopping malls, leisure centres and hospital waiting areas.
Team of Experts
The third group of people identified are early years youngsters in school. Sowing the seeds of an idea of a career in the Fire Service is an important first step. Many watches across the Service have built good relations with their local schools to introduce the message of fire safety. Off the back of that work we will develop seed sowing sessions, portraying the Fire Service as a great place to work for anyone.
Even though we have previously hosted successful positive action events, which have been well attended, we have now put in place a more structured approach. We have pulled together a team of experts who help plan, promote and deliver positive action events ahead of recruitment drives. By having this formal approach in place we can ensure that we keep people interested in a career with our service. Previously we held positive action events but were not able to give details of recruitment drives as they were not formalised. However, now we are able to encourage people to apply almost immediately. Our team of experts consists of firefighters, station officers, our fitness advisor and communications officers. We plan the positive action events and the resources needed to deliver them and then set about promoting them.
During our last positive action day we surveyed those attending to ask how they heard about the event and if they would consider applying. We discovered that the majority felt they would apply and our communications plan had worked. We used a variety of ways to promote the events, for instance through press releases sent to local newspapers and radio stations, posters in places such as leisure centres, articles on our website and direct marketing. Interestingly we are currently receiving an average of two requests a week from people asking for details of more positive action events. These requests are coming from people directly accessing information on our website. We feel that as our website is now generating a steady stream of enquiries from women and BME groups, it is worth ensuring that our web pages have information on them.
It is worth remembering that according to Ofcom, consumers from ethnic minority groups are among the most enthusiastic and technology-aware consumers of communications services in the UK. They watch less TV – especially the biggest traditional channels – and those with the Internet are more likely to have broadband than the rest of the population. We are making better use of our web pages as a way of communicating our intentions, plans and progress. This will be expanded to include our plans on delivering services to meet the needs of local BME communities, the progress we have made and how we are doing as an employer.
Making Decisions
Our response to the introduction of the equality schemes has been to set servicespecific objectives which build on existing good practice. For example we have established a working group to develop good practice in supporting employees with learning disabilities, especially dyslexia. Our training centre has built up a pool of knowledge and skills in supporting people with learning disabilities as they go through their basic training. The good practice guide will enable us to cascade that knowledge through all our training, the ADC process and out onto stations.
One of the service’s priorities that we identified in the development of the Gender Equality Scheme has been to conduct a review of our property to see how we are able to provide facilities on site with regard to the dignity and respect of women and men. We have used the same review to audit our previous work on accessibility for disabled people, and our capacity to provide prayer and reflection space for people of differing faiths. An on-going challenge of any service is the mainstreaming of equalities. We are building a strategic approach to this with the establishment of an equalities board attended by principal officers, the elected portfolio holder for fire, the head of HR and the equalities adviser. Its purpose is to build the capacity of the strategic decision makers to mainstream equalities into their decision making. In addition we have set up an internal advisory group made up of a cross section of the organisation. As well as reviewing policy developments they will advise, and form a major part of our internal consultation in addition to our representative bodies. We are also working towards the establishment of an external advisory group enabling us to engage in a similar way with the communities of Hertfordshire. All the above helps to ensure ‘equality and diversity’ are well embedded in the strategic direction for Hertfordshire Fire and Resc
About the Author:
Equalities Adviser Mary Thompson has worked for Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service since August 2005.
During that time she has been responsible for managing the Positive Action work to attract women and black, Asian and minority ethnic people to the service and for promoting good practice in employment and service delivery. Mary works closely on joint projects with the equality leads in the other fire services in the East of England region, as well as working collaboratively with her county council colleagues in the development of the race, disability and gender equality schemes. |
