Introduction
The main responsibility of public safety agencies is to serve the citizens and protect them within the jurisdiction of the local government. Such agencies are Law Enforcement, Fire Departments, EMS, Homeland Security, Military Police, etc. The employees of public safety agencies are called public safety officers. Very often, they are cross-trained and can respond in case of the emergencies with no regards to the agency that they work for. The basic requirement to hire a public safety officer is at least a high school degree and preferably a college diploma. It is also necessary to pass police training or basic law enforcement training. All public safety employees have to be physically fit and able to pass extensive background checks as well as a psychological testing. Other important criteria for a selection are problem solving skills, logical reasoning and attention to details.
In addition to its main duties and responsibilities, an employee of any public safety agency should always be ready to provide an additional assistance in case one is needed. For example, the officers on traffic patrol may be asked to provide back-up assistance to other officers in the emergency situations, so they always have to be ready and prepared and, of course, properly trained. Also, in fire, hostage, car accident etc. situations, officers should be able to control crowds, perform a thorough investigation, and write incident reports. “Many departments teach their officers how to use basic HYPERLINK "http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-first-aid.htm" first aid measures, cardiopulmonary resuscitation ( HYPERLINK "http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-cpr.htm" CPR ) and medical resuscitators.” (National Science Foundation, 2012)
In this paper, I would like to no to only concentrate on the requirements of the public safety agencies to their employees but also research major methods that they use in order to prepare their officers for leadership roles and succession planning. The agency that I would like to mostly concentrate on is Fire Department.
The Literature Overview
In terms of literature, there is a lot of information on the topic available online. For the research, I would like to concentrate mostly on Fire Department and the possibilities for its employees in terms of the career growth and development of leadership skills. A lot of information is offered on the Fire Department website as well as on the portal of the US Government. I was able to find some information on different trainings and seminars using articles in newspapers and public notices.
Field Research and Investigation
It is extremely important to note that the future of fire service will mostly depend on the availability of current leaders in order to develop future leaders within the agency. In order to conduct an in-depth research, I tried to gather as much information as possible on the available leadership skills trainings and succession plans. According to the available information, currently, Fire Department is offering a wide range of mentoring, training and coaching sessions in order to develop all necessary personal skills and shape its employees into future leaders. One of the events that I …