Selecting Diverse Fire Instructors

Scenario: I am seeking to create a diverse cadre of instructors in fire academies and there is little on the topic. How does a fire chief or training officer select the best individuals for this important position?

The question you should start asking is what constitutes a “diverse” instructor cadre and what are the important elements to seek out when creating this group of instructors. The term Diverse in most of our minds revolves around the definition of: a different kind, form, character, etc.; unlike: a wide range of diverse opinions; of various kinds or forms; multiform and finally, including representatives from more than one social, cultural, or economic group, especially members of ethnic or religious minority groups. The term “Diversity” on the other hand, involves:  the inclusion of individuals representing more than one national origin, color, religion, socioeconomic stratum, sexual orientation, and other attributes.

So, does Diverse and Diversity mean the same thing? It appears that it does.

Now let’s put together your instructor group. Looking at the predominate number of firefighters across the nation excluding volunteers (no offense intended here as the volunteer firefighter group appears to be more diverse in its makeup of firefighters), we see a lot of white males, some women, some black, some Hispanic, some Asians and a few Native Americans. Sprinkled in there are other ethnic groups that are generally lumped together with no clear definition of their affiliation and identity in the fire service mix. From this available group you need to select a diverse group to instruct the remainder of your firefighters and recruits.

If your department recruiting Mission Statement is to select a diverse group of individuals from your community to be firefighters, which is a noble and hard to achieve goal; it is incumbent on the Chief or Training Officer to select members of your organization that may not “look like” your incoming class of recruits but have the global and diverse perspective to conduct your academy at the highest standards possible in order to graduate the highest number of recruits that are diverse and meet the diversity goal in the recruitment Mission Statement. For ongoing training, these same instructors must remember the mission statement in another context to provide again the best possible training for the existing firefighters.

Most often the recruitment of instructors follows the typical pattern: build from within by assigning a firefighter (or several) to be part of the cadre of instructors; seek vin-house olunteers to fill the role; create a permanent training department or individual positions to fill that role or the department will outsource the training responsibilities with a combination of web based on-line training, regional training facilities or the local Community Colleges.

Many times the instructor selected is on light duty, is a poor performer and has been "assigned" as an instructor or is at the end of their career, cannot perform their tasks as a firefighter or fire officer and are retired in place. Too many times instructors are recruited from same "white male" group that makes up the fire services. It makes it difficult to recruit or instruct those who "look different" from other members of the department.

In my research on legal issues with recruit academies, I have found those who are assigned from within are generally not very well trained in the diversity issues as an instructor, even worse bring certain personal biases such as bias against gender or race into the environment. For some examples, you can look at the City of Baltimore with Racheal M. Wilson or in Fresno Fire with Michelle Maher resulting in loss of life, demotions, terminations, academy reorganizations, large monetary awards, and other adjustments to improve the quality and safety during training.

My "best practice" advice is to:

Creating an instructor cadre is a difficult process but is achievable with the proper leadership in place, a rigorous selection process, core value statements, frontloaded diversity training and the necessary total support of the fire department to ensure success.