Certificate in Fire Service Leadership:
Course Descriptions
Course index
Station Officer: Dealing with People
In this course you will learn some management theory and research principally by studying the course materials. You will demonstrate your learning by applying that theory and research to issues arising from case studies and issues in your own department. In this course, and many others, you will use the Horizon County Fire Service Case Study (also called Horizon County for short). We suggest that you read the history section and the table of contents and then glance at the different sections. Some of the assignments in this course will require you to refer to Horizon County.
Once you have completed this course you should be better able to analyze and deal effectively with some of the problems that arise in a station. This course will not teach you how to deal with your emotional reactions as you break up a fist fight between two friends in your station. No distance education course can do that. Your learning will depend upon applying what you learn to real or simulated situations, reflecting on the experience and doing a better job next time.
In brief this course deals with
- Organization
- Motivation
- Discipline
- Leadership
- Training
Instructors:
John Benoit, George Dunne, Les Karpluk, Ken McMullen, Bill Mosher
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Station Officer: Dealing with New Operations
In this course you will be exposed to new operations that have replaced fire suppression as the major activity given the decline in structural fires in most Canadian communities. Some, such as water transport, arise because suburbanization and municipal amalgamation require urban firefighters to engage in fire suppression in unserviced areas. Others, such as emergency medical services, arise from public demand while fire safety education and inspections arise from within the fire service. These new operations create a requirement for training, much of which will be provided by this course.
This course requires completing 5 assignments about two weeks apart. This is one more assignment than the usual number but this course requires less reading than most others.
In brief Station Officer Dealing with New Operations deals with
- In-service inspections
- Water transport
- EMS first responder
- Public fire safety education
- Training
Instructors:
Bob Airey, Don Day, Ken Eden, Philip Toole
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The Environment of the Fire Station
In Station Officer: Dealing With People you are presented with a station fairly isolated from its environment. In Station Officer: Dealing With New Operations you are presented with new operations that arise from the initiative of chief officers as responses to external demands and events. In this course we will examine some of these external factors. A wise station officer will scan the environment to prepare for changes.
Among the external actors we will consider are:
- the municipal government that signs many paycheques;
- the chief officers who give orders and decide who gets promoted;
- provincial government legislation on employment equity and equality of access to service;
- firefighter unions that require station officers to balance loyalty to the union with loyalty to the department;
- for volunteer departments, apparatus purchases that require a balance of objective performance criteria and preference for certain manufacturers, models and features.
Instructors:
Michael Eddy, William Hewitt, Denys Prevost, Glen Maddess, Robert Simmonds
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