Starting Your Program

So… you’ve been assigned or have recently become a fire and life safety educator for your agency. You don’t know where — or even how — to start.

This page is being designed to help you get started. Information will be added when possible. In the meantime, please consider the following questions:

  1. Why do I need to teach fire and life safety in my community?
  2. Have you identified the major local fire and life safety problems and concerns? What are the greatest risk factors? (Just teaching for the sake of teaching is not solving anything. Know your community’s risk factors and address those first in your safety education efforts).
  3. Do you know who your potential audience is?
  4. What community resources are available to help me accomplish my goals? (Can partnerships or coalitions be built to help us be more effective?)
  5. Is there any budget available for this effort?
  6. Has anything been established in the past? Was any formal evaluation done to determine effectiveness (should we keep spending time/effort on the existing project)?
  7. Has my agency moved beyond “fire prevention” and realized that growing needs address “all risk” education? (There are 23 classifications of injuries!)
  8. Am I willing to further my education by taking courses at the state fire academy, the National Fire Academy and through self-study?
  9. Will I follow the Fire and Life Safety Educator Canon of Ethics?*

Recommended reading for the new Fire and Life Safety Educator:

  • NFPA 1035
  • IFSTA Fire and Life Safety Educator (at least 2nd edition or beyond)
  • America at Risk (America Burning Recomissoned) FEMA document FA-223 June 2002
  • Public Fire Education Planning - A Five Step Process (FEMA FA-219) November 2001**

*Fire and Life Safety Educator Canon of Ethics

  • Achieve and maintain professional competency.
  • Advance the professional competency of other fire and life safety educators through networking and mentoring.
  • Teach only those subjects which the fire and life safety educator is qualified to teach.
  • Prepare for each presentation because a life in the audience depends on it.
  • Evaluate program results honestly.
  • Continually improve programs and presentations.
  • Use only current and accurate material and information, including statistics.
  • Perform the duties of fire and life safety education with integrity.
  • Respect the work of other educators, through the courtesies of crediting their ideas and materials where appropriate and through compliance with copyright laws.
  • Recognize when your own conduct does not fully meet this canon of ethics, and resolve to improve.

**The Five-Step Planning Process (Overview)

  1. Identification of major problems
  2. Selection of the most cost-effective objectives for the education program
  3. Design of the program itself
  4. Implementation of the program plan
  5. Evaluation of the fire safety program to determine impact

Types of Instructional Methods
Do you know how to use each effectively and when needed?

  • Lecture
  • Discussion
  • Illustration
  • Demonstration
  • Team Teaching