By Dr. Denis Onieal, superintendent, National Fire Academy
This is the third in a series of articles about professional status for the fire and emergency services through a system of training and education
Have you or someone you know taken fire science courses at a two-year college, taken courses at state and local fire training academies and through the National Fire Academy (NFA), achieved various levels of certification, AND, all combined, these achievements are “all over the map,” meaning none of them evolved in a coherent and planned way? Most firefighters and officers have earned college credits and training certificates since their first day in the fire service. However, this professional development is usually uncoordinated and fragmented, resulting in duplication of effort and inefficiencies for students. Lack of coordination between fire-related training, higher education, and certification contributes to this problem.
Collaboration and coordination are needed between all service providers responsible for fire and emergency services professional development. Each has a major role to play. This article presents the recommendations that have evolved over the past four annual Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education (FESHE) conferences. Combined, these products and outcomes represent a new strategic approach to professional development. They will help move the fire and emergency services from a technical occupation to a full-fledged profession similar to physicians, nurses, lawyers, and architects, who, unlike fire service personnel, have common course requirements within their respective degree programs.
There are several major tenets on which a “profession” is built, including reciprocity for practicing in different states (with an exam), universally accepted standards of practice, and a professional development model, among others. The work accomplished during the FESHE conferences addresses one tenet–professional development.
The Role of FESHE Conferences
The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) hosts the annual FESHE conference on its campus in Emmitsburg, Maryland. These conferences are a combination of presentations, problem solving, and consensus-building sessions that result in higher education-related products or recommendations for national adoption.
At the 2000 conference, two panel discussions were conducted. The first panel included fire service leaders representing national fire service organizations, and the second was comprised of state directors of fire service training. Both panels raised issues that formed the basis for these national recommendations, including the need for the following:
- degree programs that teach critical thinking skills by requiring significant numbers of general education, rather than mostly fire science, courses;
- appropriate recognition of certification for academic credit and vice versa;
- associate degree programs that are transferable to baccalaureate programs;
- a model fire science curriculum at the associate level that universally standardizes what students learn and facilitates the application of these courses toward certification goals; and
- collaboration between fire service certification and training agencies and academic fire programs.
Fire and Emergency Services Professional Development Model
The professional development model is one product finalized at the 2002 FESHE IV conference. It is not a promotion model addressing credentials; rather, it is an experience-based model that recommends an efficient path for fire service professional development supported by collaboration between fire-related training, higher education, and certification providers. The model recommends what these providers’ respective roles should be and how they should coordinate their programs.
