CFA is committed to the wellbeing of all its firefighters. We have a duty to ensure the safety of our people; if someone volunteers their time as a firefighter, we want to make sure they come home.
Firefighting is inherently dangerous and at times our members are placed under extreme conditions to render assistance to the community. To make sure that they come home in good shape after getting on a truck, we need to ensure they are medically fit to perform their duties.
We have trialled a Fit for Duty program to ensure that our volunteers are safe when they turn out to help keep people and properties safe.
Developed by volunteers for volunteers, in collaboration with Deakin University, to address the physical and mental demands of firefighting, the Fit for Duty pilot was a three-pronged program with a health-screening component, physical tanker-based activities, and a Mental Health First Aid Course.
During the pilot, a number of people have actually been alerted to underlying health issues that they’ve been able to address, which potentially could have saved their lives. For most of the participants, no medical issue was identified. For the ones that had medical issues identified through Fit for Duty, we supported them in addressing those. Two have since returned to operational duties, while a third has continues to provide a valuable service as a non-operational CFA volunteer.
The psychological component of Fit for Duty is about mental health first aid, not psychological testing.
It’s important to help brigade members understand the sign of stress or mental health issues to prevent harm or further harm and to encourage people to understand where they are on the mental health spectrum and what support is available.
The physical component used in the pilot has been put on hold. It will be adjusted in consultation with our members following valuable feedback and learnings during the trial stage.
Feedback has been positive from the 430 operational volunteers from our most active brigades in Victoria’s South West that have completed pilot testing.
The Fit for Duty pilot has now been completed and the program has transitioned into a state level team who will focus on engagement with all stakeholders, policy development, a future implementation plan and clear communication. No date has been decided for implementation.
Fit for Duty is a program for volunteers. Career firefighters go through rigorous medical and physical testing as part of the recruitment process and also have a requirement to maintain an operational capacity. They have a restricted duties process or return to work process that is managed locally, but overseen centrally. To do so, many of them take up the opportunity to access to our program called Healthy For Life, which is delivered by the CFA Health Services team to Career Firefighters, Administrative staff, District Mechanical Officers and Communications staff state wide since 2006 to improve employee's wellbeing, health, and fitness.