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Fire Departments should consider chartering BSA Venture Crews and not just Junior FF or Explorer Posts.
Fire Departments should consider chartering Venture Crews through BSA, either as an addition to Explorer or Junior FF programs, or instead of the firefighting-focused programs entirely.
Here is my reasoning.
Explorer/Jr. FF programs focus exclusively on Firefighting, which often creates a sense in the Juniors that they "are" Firefighters - which they are not.
The Venturing Program is open to young men and women 14-21 years old and is basically a high-adventure program which also emphasizes Scouting Values in a different format. Trustworthiness, loyalty, Selfless Service, etc... While Venture crews may focus on a particular high adventure activity such as backpacking, SCUBA diving, climbing, etc., which all support Fire Service Skills, and other public safety functions such as Search and Rescue, they are not exclusively Fire Service Skills so many young adults who wouldn't be interested in a firefighting focused program would be interested in a Venture Crew.
With a Fire Department as the Charter Organization of a Venture Crew, the Crew has access to resources the Fire Department has such as Firefighters to teach skills and serve as mentors/advisers, equipment, and meeting locations. If the Venture Crew meets at the Firehouse, the young adults are in the firehouse with Firefighters, learning skills which are valuable to the Fire Service without being given the impression that they "are" Firefighters - which as we see on FFN creates some issues.
Venturers would not need to have any firefighting gear. The uniform for most Venture Crews is a golf shirt with the Crew's name/logo embroidered on it, and shorts/pants, or the BSA has a Venture Scout uniform the crew can elect to wear. The members of the crew decide the focus of the crew, with some guidance. If you live near the coast, or a body of water, they may elect to focus on SCUBA diving. If you live near the mountains, it may be climbing, or backpacking, or paragliding. In any event, the crew can be taught Search and Rescue skills and can serve as searchers/coordinators for Lost Child searches, Lost Hikers, etc. and every EMA system needs a pool of trained and ready volunteers for those situations. Older Venturers can even be trained as First Responders and help your EMS system without having to be focused on firefighting.
Basically, by widening the focus of the youth outreach of the fire department at little, from firefighting to high adventure, you attractive a larger pool of potential future Firefighters into the firehouse, many of whom would
never have considered Firefighting otherwise, and although not all of them will want to go into Firefighting, they will have a better understanding as adults (and voters) of Firefighters, the Fire Service and the role they play in the community from being a member of the department-sponsored Venture Crew, and being in the Firehouse
once or twice a week. Those Venturers who do decide to go into Firefighting will come with a broader experience and more valuable skills then those young adults who either only focused on Firefighting (Jr. FFs/Explorers) or
who never participated because as teens they weren't interested in firefighting as a career.
Additionally, Firefighters who are 18-21 years-old can participate in Venturing as "Youth Members." Many young adults who were active in Scouting, either as Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts "age out" at 18 and after graduating from high school look for something to fill the void. Venturing allows them to go camping, backpacking, sailing, SCUBA diving, etc. in a similar group without having to be an "adult adviser" yet as they would with their traditional Scouting units. Having older Venturers who are already certified Firefighters can help younger Venturers mature without some of the transitional issues that sometimes occur when "Juniors" become
certified Firefighters such as underage drinking. Everyone makes mistakes when they’re “young and dumb and full of …enthusiasm,” but by having a program in place for your members who are making that transition from “youth” to “adult” you can keep ‘em in bunker gear.
Greenman
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Comment by Greenman on April 13, 2010 at 8:02pm
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Mike,
Sounds like you guys found a fix that worked for you. I realize that sponsoring a Venture Crew is not the right answer for everyone, especially one that wants to use the Juniors the way you do, but is an alternative for some departments and is still a viable option in addition to Junior FFs.
Many communities simply do not have a pool of older High School students who want to be Firefighters when they become adults, much less want to be a Junior Firefighter now. Venturing is a tool to make the "soft sell" on the Fire service to a wider audience of young people, especially if they publicize they activities well. Around our way frequent SCUBA trips attract a lot of interested young people, especially girls.
Is there a rule that says a Fire Department can only have one avenue to reach out to tomorrow's Firefighters?
Greenman
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Comment by Mike on April 7, 2010 at 9:13pm
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I'm getting into this conversation a little late and by the looks of things will also be the lone decenter as well.
While I agree that the Venturing program may be a good one as a whole, I disagree that it is what the fire service needs to resolve its issues. My department looked at this program a couple of years ago when we were looking to revive out Junior FF program and decided it isn't what we were looking to do. We needed firefighters, not an extension of the Boy Scouts.
Since that time we have gone from having a single Junior to about a dozen. Of this number half have completed the first three modules of Pennsylvania's Delmar program which is our essentials of firemanship program. Having completed this training these individuals are now able to actively participate in exterior firefighting operations, assist at MVCs as well as act as fireground support personnel at an incident scene.
Revamping our previous program did take some work on our part but it wasn't all that difficult. The state has an excellent book that provided all the pertinent information that was needed and even included some sample guidelines that were in use by other departments in the state. Our committee took this information and built a program that we felt would work for us. At this point we feel that we have been successful and are currently working to expand the program.
Our Juniors do much more than just keep the station and equipment clean and shuttle bottled water and air bottles on the scene of an incident. They also participate in their own fund raising activities as well as the department's fund raising. They participate in regular training sessions as well as applicable state sponsored training. We have also sent several of our Juniors to a leadership program that is put on by the Pennsylvania Fire and Emergency Services Institute.
While the Venture program may work for some we felt that it was not a good fit for our organization. We needed to build firefighters from the ground up and that's exactly what we've done. Our program may not be prefect and could use a little polish here and there. But it has worked for us.
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"Venturing is basically what Explorer Scouts was pre-1990's."
It's what High Adventure Exploring was pre-1990's, Fire/Police/EMS Explorers is still Explorers.
Greenman
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Exploring is career-focused and is not run like traditional Scouts at all and is run by the Learning for Life subsidiary of BSA.
Venturing is more like traditional Scouts in that it is a high-adventure program and not a career-field focused program.
Venturing is basically what Explorer Scouts was pre-1990's.
Greenman
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Comment by Auxman on March 11, 2010 at 5:08pm
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I thought Venturing was the new name for the Explorer program?
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Comment by Tiger Schmittendorf on March 11, 2010 at 7:47am
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I think that's a great approach - certainly another alternative to consider.
As we discussed in my netcast on recruitment and retention last night at www.firefighternetcast.com, programs like Venturing, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Brownies, Cub Scouts, Boys & Girls Clubs and certainly Explorers and Junior Firefighters, etc. are all breeding grounds and a feeder system for youth development into the fire service.
The success of this farm team system relies on the fire service's ability to first recognize this opportunity and the value of investing in our future. Next, we need to create a framework for integrating, executing and monitoring the participation of young people in a positive learning environment that if managed and marketed properly, progresses into involvement in the volunteer fire service.
As I've written and said many times, "The survival and success of the volunteer fire service relies on our ability to create more opportunities for more people to volunteer less time."
Your suggestion offers an alternative solution to a growing problem, and another "venture" that will hopefully lead our young people to a life of service giving back to their community.
Nicely done.
Stay safe. Train often.
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