Recruitment and Retention of Volunteer Firefighters in Erie County, New York PDF Download

Author: Mark F. Mallick
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
Volunteer fire departments across the country have been feeling the effects of declining membership. Less and less people are joining volunteer fire departments and many experienced members are leaving. This trend is also being experienced by a number of volunteer fire departments located in Erie County, New York, based on a recent survey conducted by the Erie County Volunteer Firemen's Association. The purpose of this paper was to determine what could be done to recruit new volunteers and what could be done to retain current volunteers. An action research method was selected in order to gather sufficient information regarding the volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention programs from across the country. These programs were analyzed to decide which, if any, would be applicable in Erie County. In researching numerous articles and reports, it became apparent that the problem of diminishing volunteers was widespread. A number of fire departments have realized that in order to remain in existence, they must aggressively recruit new members and become more aware of members' needs to retain those members. A number of creative recruitment and retention programs in use across the country were evaluated. From those programs, a number were selected to be implemented in the Erie County Fire Service, some with only minor modifications. Essentially, Erie County's recruitment and retention programs must become very aggressive in order to provide quality fire protection and emergency medical services to the county residents, or face the consequences of having to drastically increase taxes to subsidize a career fire department.