Chair's update

Welcome to the first FirePRO newsletter which is one of a number of ways we are improving what the network gives members and builds on our culture of sharing the best of our work.

This community is more important than ever before because the services we work for are facing one of their most difficult times in their history and our teams are smaller than ever due to the financial pressures we face – but it’s one of the most important times to be delivering brilliant communications.

However it is not all doom and gloom. Our colleagues are out in communities doing excellent work to make people safer from incidents and our efforts are a vital part of that. It is often our tools and advice that gives firefighters and community safety advocates the support and confidence to do their job to the best standard.

Because that work and what is required of us as communicators is evolving, so is FirePRO. Philip Gillingham from Staffordshire Fire & Rescue has worked tirelessly in his role as Chair for more than two years now. After stepping down, he continues through his work as committee member and now I am driving on some work that he began as the new Chair of the group.

The first change is that I’ll be supported by a Vice Chair, Bridget Aherne (Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service), and a Vice Chair Elect, Alex Mills (South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue) because there is much that we need to do and we are stronger as a group.

That sentiment goes for the wider committee and participation in FirePRO – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and we’ve proved that through some of the fantastic work we’ve done this year.

We’ve delivered an excellent development day in South Yorkshire that led to some very tangible joint work on campaigns nationally and longer term strategies for individual teams, members from around the country have coordinated everyone’s death in service policies and plans to develop a toolkit that will be shared with all fire service communications teams and we’ve continued to meet regionally to support each other locally as well as have a voice at CFOA’s various groups and Fire Kills.

I don’t want to spoil what is in this newsletter so please read on to see more details on those items.

It’d be remiss not to mention the on-going industrial action as it’s been a pervasive feature in our work this year, it is a difficult subject and it has been a very challenging communications issue, both for employee and public engagement. FirePRO has been vital for many to share ideas, comms plans, tools and materials and, at times, just for colleagues to lend an ear to one another.

All of that work and support will continue but the next evolution of FirePRO is adapting to meet current needs. A number of workstreams have been decided upon to mirror more closely the CFOA groups and get us to the heart of the work that needs doing and where we need to have the influence.

This will be discussed in more detail at the conference later this month, which is another development activity that has been arranged by the FirePRO group. Much hard work has gone into creating an agenda that is relevant to the work you are doing now, provides you with support, tools and ideas for the job you will need to do in the future and, additionally, allows you to hear some first-hand accounts, tips and sharing of best practice from those who’ve dealt with some of the most significant incidents and biggest comms challenges of the last 12 months.

If you’ve not already booked, please log on to the FirePRO portal on the CFOA communities pages to find more information and booking details or contact your local committee member for details.

Kathy Stacey (Lancashire FRS)
FirePRO Chair