Cultural Change

100 words each

#1

Initiative 1- Cultural Change

Good evening everyone, I believe the fire service is in need of some cultural change in a way. Any type of change in the fire service is a very hard sell even with the correct data to back it. The culture or tradition run very deep within the fire community and it’s something we are proud to display. With this type of things we are only hurting ourselves In the long run. We have too many of our own dying from preventable diseases to continue the stigma of “we’re are too tough to be hurt attitude.” I think with the right education and training we can affect a change in the service as long as they understand the value in that change. The most valuable thing is us the people and that is what we are trying to protect. When it comes to safety part of our job it always seen corners are cut but it shouldn’t be that way and we all have been guilty of it. In a lot of cases these safety protocols are in place for a reason and usually written in our brothers and sister blood.

There a general inherent risks with our job that is a given. What needs to be distilled in our service members is the importance of making risk analyzed decisions. We have to guy the buy in of our senior guys in this process and build our new generation as the come in to the fire service. That way as our senior guys are transition out, we have a new culture with the new think of change is in everyone’s best interest.

I absolutely think both can coexist, with some change obviously. Change is for the better everything changes. Just because something changes you can still embrace the culture of a fire department. You are jut creating a different type of culture that is in the best interest of us members of the fire service.

Initiative 2 Accountability

Personal accountability is holding yourself accountable for your own actions and consequences. Accountability ensures every task runs smoothly in the fire service as well as most occupations.

I’m not sure what the question is asking maybe that you can still show bravery while, holding yourself accountable to perform within the standards that are applied. So you have to holds yourself accountable to work in your scope.

There are a lot of advantages of personal account ability with in you flight. It allows everything to be transparent at every level, if you are holding yourself accountable for you action meaning you are performing your tasks at a high level. I think personal account ability is just a foundation of performing as a cohesive unit.

#2

1. The need to promote safety does require culture change in the fire service. These are necessary in order to prevent line of duty injury and death, both from primary sources (injuries or incidences on scenes) and of secondary cause (cancers, progressing back injuries, PTSD development, etc). These culture shifts need to come from the top, from positions such as that of chiefs, captains, and senior firefighters. To be able to provide the service to the community, it is important for departments to “practice what they preach”, committing the department and its individuals to safe practices, too.
2. Regarding the gaps in safety culture as they related to existing culture in emergency services, I would like to draw from my own experiences. I think these gaps often come from the fact that we (any first responders) have this underlying…I’m not sure what to call, where we think we are invincible. As medics, we are constantly preaching scene safety, safe lifting and moving practices, and things like the importance of wearing seatbelts. However, there are times where scene safety was ignored in an effort to help a patient, where we lifted more than we should have without assistance, and I can only count on one hand the amount of times I’ve worn my seatbelt in the last 6 months while in the back with a patient. Granted, there are times I cannot always wear a seatbelt, like while rendering patient care, but there is no reason that after finishing my task, I can’t sit back and put it on. I think that the though for many of us (first responders) is “It won’t happen to me”. There is definitely some cognitive dissonance here.
3. Case Study: It is absolutely possible for tradition and safety to coexist. Like anything else, the fire service becomes more educated, as more attention is brought to unsafe practices, the service as a whole must continue to adapt, putting safety above all else. For the fire service to continue successfully, and for traditions to continue, safety needs to be put in the forefront of a department.
4. Personal accountability is taking responsibility for one’s own actions. This goes hand in hand with integrity. Personal accountability and integrity are choices, it is a mindset and an expression of morality, too. Being able to hold one’s self responsible for actions and bear the consequences, in my opinion, show bravery and courage, as doing what is right is not always easy.
5. Bravery without accountability, it appears, is foolish. It is my opinion that personal accountability is a key component of bravery, courage, and the like. Bravery, to be worth the effort, must involve the ability to act and function safely and professionally. As we are learning, accountability plays a role in both.
6. Organization accountability has countless advantages. Things like policies that promote safe practices and firefighter wellness encourage firefighters to hold themselves to a higher standard. Not just themselves though, it encourages camaraderie amongst the department to hold each other accountable as well. Implementing policies is (in theory) much more effective and quite a bit easier when the organization is holding itself accountable from all levels, management down.