Field Training Officers for Fire Fighters

By John K. Murphy In the interest of ensuring success and quality of service to our firefighters, how many departments have a Fire Fighter Field Training Officer (FF-FTO) to accompany your probationary firefighters to monitor their performance and to correct those errors in service before they become ingrained in their muscle memory and become bad habits? Police have had FTO’s for many years – those experienced police officers accompanying the newly minted probationary policy officer in their field experiences (EMS also utilizes the concept of a FTO). In an article written by Jack Ryan with PATC, police agencies have an obligation to train its police officers for the recurring tasks that officers will face during their career. Where it is foreseeable that a police officer will face a particular task that may result in harm to another person, the officer’s agency must provide training in how to conduct that task in a manner which is consistent with generally accepted practices in law enforcement. What is “generally accepted” is defined by the law enforcement profession and by court decisions analyzing police conduct. Training serves as a means toward high-level performance by police officers. Training is an input toward proper performance. Unfortunately, many agencies conduct training to avoid, or in response to civil liability rather than to promote high-level performance. Over the past two decades, attacks on training have become one of the weapons for persons who file lawsuits against the police. (Source: http://patc.com/weeklyarticles/liabilitytraining.shtml) You may say, that’s why we assign them to a station that has a Lieutenant or Captain to do the field training, but for Lieutenants and Captains, they may already have enough on their plate. Why not have FTO’s in the fire service? While conducting some research on the internet, I found find there are several fire departments that provide FF-FTO’s. There is a great article written by Walter Lewis from Orlando Fire indicating they have a program in place and it is a success. The focus of the program is to provide guidance and mentorship to recent academy recruits who are now probationary firefighters. (http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/print/volume-168/issue-4/features/developing-andimplementing-a-field-training-officer-program.html) Other agencies (EMS oriented) have created a Field Training Officer/Preceptor guidebook for use for newly graduated EMS provided which is quite comprehensive. A link to the Northern Virginia EMS Council is worthy of a look to see if there are components in their program you may want to adopt into your programs (Source: http://northern.vaems.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=486&Itemid=21) Are we implementing these FF-FTO programs to avoid litigation like noted in the article from Jack Ryan or to provide a better level of service to our communities or a little of both. As a retired Deputy Chief and Attorney I would opine that we do these FF-FTO’s to serve both purposes – risk mitigation and improvement in the quality of our firefighters. A bit of prevention is worth its weight in legal fees and you may not want to implement a full blown FFFTO program, but my legal and practical advice is to create something similar where an experienced firefighter is mentoring your newly minted firefighters in all aspects of our service. Create the criteria you want the FF-FTO and new probationary firefighter to accomplish and establish some remediation time for those skills not easily learned. Remember what Ben Franklin, the father of the fire service once uttered, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” John K. Murphy, J.D. M.S, PA-C, EFO, a career firefighter beginning his fire service career as a Firefighter/Paramedic and retiring as a Deputy Fire Chief after 32 years of service. Mr. Murphy is an attorney whose focus is on firefighter health & safety, firefighter risk management, employment practices liability, employment policy, internal investigations, expert witness and litigation support and consulting on risk management for fire departments. He is a licensed and practicing Physicians Assistant. Mr. Murphy is a frequent author, legal columnist, blogger and member of Fire Service Court Radio on Blog Talk Radio and FDIC presenter for Fire Engineering; lecturer at the IAFC Fire Rescue International, IWomen’s Conference’s and numerous other national Fire and EMS conferences. Mr. Murphy authored an EMS text book entitled Legal, Political and Regulatory Environment of EMS and co-authored: Cooling the Flames: Verbal De-escalation of Mentally Ill and Aggressive Patients. A Comprehensive Guidebook for Firefighters and Emergency Medical Services. He is a distance learning instructor at the University of Florida Fire and Emergency Services programs and legal counsel and member of ISFSI.