A Few Reasons Why Its Hard to Find Firefighters (Tapping into the Enthusiasm of the Youth)

Many departments are struggling to find new volunteers. Young people seem to not be interested in public service and the recruitment has moved throughout different venues such as policing, firefighting, EMT, and other fields. To ensure these departments appeal to the younger generation they must be connected to their communities in a way where they are seen as viable and valuable options for our youth. I think we would want that to be a good pathway to their development through positive community engagement.

A Few Reasons Why Its Hard to Find Volunteer Firefighters

There are many reasons why many departments are having a hard time recruiting (not necessarily all). For example, I have heard people discount volunteer firefighters not realizing that they are doing most of the work nationally. Its a good thing people are giving up their time and put themselves at risk with little more benefit then knowing they are helping others. Yet we have people who feel that firefighting isn't serious work and those who put themselves at risk are somehow not of particular high value if they are not paid for it. 

Many of our problems are related to assumptions and the inability to see a new direction for our youth and for our society. Sometimes we have to flip the script to get people motivated and believing in building a world they want to be part of. Motivation comes from moral sentiment and need and there is no reason why firefighting shouldn't be part of that cause with Global Warming and other environmental issues hitting the airwaves regularly (Trust me, the youth are very concerned about that and yet we recruit from a mono-perspective and often from homogeneous groups. There is a reason why we do this unconsciously but that has nothing to do with firefighting itself or the skills it needs.)

What I will say is that I encourage our youth to get involved. We need diverse firefighters (and other public servants) and we need them to be drawn from all different types of backgrounds. We often recruit heavily certain traits and backgrounds that don't have much to do with firefighting at all. In some of the other industries like policing diversity is extremely low. To appeal to a wide group of people, to maintain support in a declining recruitment environment. We need all of our best and brightest to be involved. We can start with coaching our youth to become familiar with these fields and bring their new ideas and values with them. We will need good guides that can understand a younger generation even though there may be differences among backgrounds. 

*This blog is designed to help you think. We have two doors before us. The one we choose makes all the difference. I opt for everyone is part of the same growth opportunities. Others may differ with my opinion but the choice would be telling. Thank you for learning with me. Have a nice day! 

** Civic Engagement. CE. Construct on the health of the system in terms of voluntary engagement, event attendance, meeting participation, etc...Just the idea of total engagement by different sections of the population to participate in society.