Scholarship Awarded for Health and Safety Study Tour

Firefighting can be an extremely demanding activity, and when placed in certain situations individuals are at increased risks when compared to many other activities within the community.

While CFA’s injury rate is low compared to many other emergency services across Australia there is always opportunity to improve. Jeff Green (right), CFA’s Manager Occupational Health and Safety was recently awarded an Emergency Services Foundation scholarship to identify successful strategies and programs.

This scholarship will allow Jeff to undertake a study tour of a number of international fire services and agencies to review prevention programs and in particular successful Health and Wellbeing programs with a focus on cardiovascular health.

The experiences of fire services worldwide are that individuals who may be at risk of a cardiovascular event have that risk increased during firefighting activities; all too frequently this can lead to tragic results. This is a key reason why Jeff is focusing his study on reviewing successful prevention programs.

During his fact-finding trip, Jeff will visit a range of fire services who have implemented key health and safety programs. While in America he will also visit the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the National Volunteer Fire Council and the US Fire Administration who have been jointly developing programs specifically aimed at volunteer fire services.

Jeff will be overseas for approximately five weeks from early August and in line with the scholarship guidelines will use his annual leave to complete the scholarship travel.

Jeff said he spent over three months working on his submission to the Emergency Services Foundation. He settled on his topic by reviewing key health and safety issues within emergency services, studying previous submissions and talking to past scholarship winners. One of the key requirements of this scholarship program is that the course of study is of benefit to the broader Victorian Emergency Services community.

He was greatly assisted by former CFA scholarship winners, Neil Bumpstead and Glenn Jennings.

Once a submission is accepted by the relevant organisation, the applications are jointly considered by representatives from each of the emergency services and a shortlist of applicants then present to a panel made up of emergency service representatives.

After the study tour is completed the scholarship winners report their findings to the Victorian Emergency Services, Emergency Management Australia and other relevant forums such as the AFAC conference.

“The scholarship program is open to any interested CFA member, staff and volunteer and I’d encourage them to apply. They should check out the Emergency Services Foundation website www.esf.com.au” Jeff said.