Warrenton, VA (May 10, 2013) – The IFE Vision 20/20 Project is reaching out to increase the number of departments wanting to serve as advocates for implementation of Community Risk Reduction (CRR) concepts. Simply, CRR is a process of identifying risks for a community and creating strategies to mitigate those risks by integrating emergency responders with prevention activities.
A common thread you will see is our emphasis on home safety visits, which are a key part of CRR. We have found that getting fire operations personnel actively involved in home safety visits with smoke alarm checks and installations is a good way to introduce them to the concepts of CRR and we will provide 30 smoke alarms for each jurisdiction.
Those of you interested would need to do a few key things:
1. Contact Steve Kuyatt with your interest in taking part.
2. We ask that the Fire Chief sign an agreement that the department will make every attempt to conduct home safety visits, install alarms and educate residents.
3. Involve emergency crews, in some fashion, in the home safety visits. There are a variety of options for this part — including working with local partners who also do home visits like Meals on Wheels, HUD Healthy Homes, or Visiting Nurses. In other words — you don’t have to have firefighters install alarms, but some relationship between the fire service and home visits is necessary.
4. Agree that this is a stepping stone, and that the department is committed to moving forward with CRR concepts after the grant period.
5. The Fire Chief would be willing to serve on a national task group of the Vision 20/20 Project and serve as an advocate for adoption of CRR concepts by the fire service. The time requirements would be minimal as we would conduct our activities by virtual web meetings and postings. This would support our efforts to institutionalize CRR concepts within the fire service, adding local voices throughout the nation.
If you are interested, we have enough funding to assure that the first 100 departments to respond will receive smoke alarms and we will provide guidance on how to conduct this program.
Interested or what to know more? Please contact Steve Kuyatt, Vision 20/20 project
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Vision 20/20 is a project of the Institution of Fire Engineers-USA Branchthat is focusing on improving fire safety across the nation through partnerships, research, science and collaboration. Its efforts are made possible through funding from the Department of Homeland Security Fire Prevention and Safety Grant program and private partnerships. More information is available atwww.strategicfire.org.
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