A Handbook On Women In Firefighting The Changing Face Of The Fire Service

This document is to help the fire service manager cope with the firefighting workforce as it changes from an all-male environment to one that includes women. The handbook offers guidance and suggestions from people who have experience and expertise in the areas that affect women's integration into fire suppression ranks. It takes a wide perspective, and, as is appropriate with personnel issues in general, offers choices and options more often than single "right" answers. The Changing Face of the Fire Service helps the fire service manager cope with the firefighting workforce as it changes from an all-male environment to one that includes women. The handbook offers guidance and suggestions from people who have experience and expertise in the areas that affect women's integration into fire suppression ranks. It takes a wide perspective, and, as is appropriate with personnel issues in general, offers choice s and options more often than single "right" answers. It attempts to answer the most frequently asked questions about women in firefighting. It focuses specifically on the issues of recruitment, entry-level physical testing, firefighter training, maternity and reproductive safety, hair-length standards, fire station facilities, sexual harassment, cultural diversity training, ongoing support, and protective gear and uniforms.

This book was developed to help the fire service leader manage the changing fire service workforce as it becomes progressively more inclusive of larger numbers of women in all ranks. It offers guidance and suggestions from people with experience and expertise, and provides choices and options more often than single "right" answers.

When an organization moves away from a generations-long tradition of being all-male toward a future that includes men and women equally, a significant change takes place. Change can be upsetting and threatening to those who are used to, and invested in, the way things "have always been." Fire may know no gender, but people do, and the fire chief of the 1990's spends more time managing people than controlling fire. Increasing numbers of women are becoming firefighters and fire officers, entering and advancing in a field that is still heavily male by both population and tradition. Fire service leaders who are not prepared to manage these workforce changes may find their workforce is managing them instead.

"This second edition of I Love a Fire Fighter is, like the first, intended to raise awareness of the psychological consequences of being a fire service family. It is my objective to describe the subtle and obvious ways the demands of this unique occupation spill over to home and to suggest strategies that you-as a parent, a child, a sibling, a spouse, a friend, or a significant other-can use to manage the spillover and/or learn to live with it"--

This compendium of materials will be useful in building and supplementing a public education program for fire safety. Lists a wide range of programs, videotapes, booklets, manuals, pamphlets, brochures, program kits, and web sites that are available from diverse sources throughout the U.S. There are 13 categories: burn and scald prevention, CPR and first aid, electrical hazards, escape plans and drills, fire and the elderly, fire extinguishers, fire safety and the disabled, flammable fabrics, residences, residential fire inspections and home safety, fire safety programs for schools and day care programs, smoke detectors, and other programs.