BY KENNETH O. BURRIS, JR.
Several of the more significant challenges that the fire and emergency services face on their journey to professionalism have to do with the delivery of education (the things you know) and training (the things you do).
Each of you has access to some form of education and training. In some places, there is a local academy. In each state there is a state fire training system (SFTS). The United States Fire Administration’s (USFA) National Fire Academy (NFA) works in cooperation with the SFTS to deliver its products and services to you. Equally, all of you have access to education-community and four-year colleges or the NFA Degrees at a Distance Program.
But some issues remain unresolved; there are questions that need answers. We aren’t there yet. Over the past two years, the NFA has been working with the SFTSs to try to identify solutions to some of the larger issues we face. Solutions to those issues, we learned, would evolve from the answers to the following questions:
- How can we simplify the process of obtaining professional education and training?
- How can we establish reciprocity-the process by which education and training a student receives is recognized in other jurisdictions?
- How can we make NFA courses more accessible to state and local training systems, and how can we speed up that process?
- How can we include excellent courses developed by the SFTSs into the NFA curriculum for use by all?
These questions, we learned, are symptoms. They’re indicators. The underlying issue was one of a “system.” How do you create a system of education and training that takes the best each part has to offer and make that collection of “bests” available to all? Once available, how do we ensure that there is universal recognition-reciprocity-for the education and training received?
NEW SERIES OF PROGRAMS
These achievements are directly attributable to the efforts of the men and women who work in the SFTSs and the NFA. After two years of work, and in full cooperation with each SFTS, to-gether we launched a series of programs designed to address these issues. What evolved is a series of programs designed to
- make more NFA courses available locally,
- begin a system of reciprocity to ensure that education and training received in one state is recognized in another,
- bring exceptional courses into the national curriculum, and
- speed up the time it takes to release NFA Train the Trainer (TtT) courses).
Enfranchisement
Through the program of Enfranchisement, the SFTSs are viewed as partners with the NFA and, as such, may deliver two-week residential, six-day, and two-day NFA courses in addition to the current deliveries available to them. Currently, the SFTSs and the NFA work cooperatively to deliver Regional (six-day) and Direct Delivery (two-day) courses. Enfranchisement establishes that the SFTS is the NFA in the state. As such, the SFTS is enfranchised to also deliver NFA residential courses using NFA instructors. We plan to release about three two-week resident courses per year to the SFTSs, depending on course development timelines. The SFTSs may now deliver additional six- and two-day courses at their discretion. The SFTSs will report student participation in all courses for inclusion in the NFA database. Students will receive NFA course certificates.
Endorsement
This program recognizes that states need courses the NFA cannot develop, either because of the number of courses the SFTSs need, the subject areas, or resource constraints. Endorsement also recognizes that some state-developed courses are equivalent to an NFA course in quality and content.
To establish the endorsement program, the NFA and the SFTSs have agreed on a set of criteria and a process to have one or several of the SFTS courses endorsed as an NFA course. The SFTSs will manage the system for assessing courses submitted by individual states against the established criteria, essentially a peer-review process using geographically distant states to perform the assessment. The NFA will review the committee’s work. Once a course meets the established criteria, it becomes an NFA “endorsed” course-NFA courses delivered locally by local instructors. Students in NFA-endorsed courses are registered in the NFA student database; if the state so desires, these students may receive NFA certificates.
Endorsed courses will be available for exchange with other states. The SFTSs manage the process for exchange, costs, and so on.
Revisions to Direct Delivery (Two-Day) System
Changes to the Direct Delivery (two-day) system include changing the time it now requires to put those courses into the TtT format. After two-day courses are developed and piloted, they will be placed into the traditional Direct Delivery program. States may choose to have a regular Direct Delivery of the course (students learn but don’t become instructors), or they can choose a TtT in which the students then become trainers in that course for the SFTS. The SFTSs will establish their own criteria for admission to the TtT courses and will receive a CD-ROM with the Instructor Guide, Student Manual, test bank, handout materials for on-site printing, and appropriate audiovisuals (some presentations may be too large for distribution on CD, so videotapes will be distributed). The CD will also include a program that will allow SFTS instructors to upload the student data to the NFA student database through the Internet. Once in the database, the new admissions system will have the capacity to immediately download the NFA certificates to the instructor for distribution to students. Additional hand-off course CD-ROMS will be available to the SFTSs. As of this writing, the data-uploading and certificate-issuance capabilities are still works in progress.
Newly developed two-day courses will be reviewed after 18 to 24 months of delivery. Field instructors will suggest revisions based on common student concerns, curriculum changes, or other similar matters.
The SFTSs that choose to remain with the traditional system of training students instead of trainers will operate the same as in the past. They will have access to these courses through the regular Direct Delivery process. The NFA will continue to support the Student Manual Program until the course is revised. The revised course materials will be available in CD-ROM format only.
BENEFITS
The Enfranchisement and Endorsement programs and changes to the two-day course delivery system mentioned above address the problems identified in the following ways.
- Enfranchisement gives states more opportunities to deliver NFA courses. They may now deliver two-week resident and six-day and two-day NFA courses using NFA instructors and may issue NFA certificates.
- Endorsement provides states with courses that meet their local needs and have time frames that are more useful to them. They use local instructors and issue NFA certificates.
- Putting two-day courses into the TtT format on release speeds the distribution of two-day courses and increases the number of students who can receive training in a shorter period of time. CD-ROM distribution reduces the time and costs associated with the printing/warehousing/distribution process.
- It is the beginning of reciprocity. By giving the SFTSs the authority to deliver NFA resident and six-day, two-day, and endorsed courses and to issue NFA certificates, it follows that they would accept NFA certificates for training delivered in other locations.
The benefits to the student and the SFTSs are evident. States choose to deliver the NFA courses they want, at a time and place of their choosing (enfranchisement). These programs provide additional courses suited to local need (endorsement) and accelerate the release of NFA courses into the TtT format (availability). However, these benefits aren’t complete unless there is a central accounting for the students trained and a national training database for training verification across state lines. We’ve provided incentives to do that.
GRANTS FOR SFTSs
To encourage the increased delivery of these courses, the USFA requested in its budget and received approval for grants for each SFTS. The grants are for $25,000: $20,000 for training and $5,000 for administrative support. The money is to be used to deliver NFA Resident, Regional, VIP, two-day, and endorsed courses and to report all students trained for inclusion in the NFA database. To date, 46 SFTSs have applied for the grants. The critical element of the grants program is the reporting of student data to the NFA. This ensures reciprocity and justifies the value of the grants.
In response to feedback from our students and many of the major fire service organizations, we expect to continue to make significant improvements to other USFA/NFA programs. The foundation built by these cooperative efforts is strong enough to face the challenges to come.
KENNETH O. BURRIS, JR., is the chief operating officer of the U.S. Fire Administration. He retired as fire chief from the City of Marietta, Georgia. He has an MPA from Kennesaw State University and a bachelor’s degree in fire protection and safety engineering technology from the University of Cincinnati. He formerly served as treasurer of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
