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In response to research findings, The Fire Fighters Charity is now contributing to a preventative health and wellbeing framework being developed by the National Fire Chiefs Council. Here I explain why it’ll be so valuable to all fire and rescue services when it comes to retaining staff.
Stress, anxiety, even burnout, these are all challenges that many fire and rescue service personnel face on a regular basis, and research has shown they can have a negative impact on mental wellbeing. In turn, this can inevitably lead to some personnel leaving the service as they struggle to balance work and life.
That’s why The Fire Fighters Charity aims to combat as many of these risk factors as possible and help its fire services community to build personal resilience early, before that impact grows and has a detrimental effect on their lives.
Taking a preventative approach
The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) is currently developing a preventative health and wellbeing framework, to which The Fire Fighters Charity is contributing. This focuses on improving wellbeing so staff can always be at their best – both at work and at home.
This approach comes after a study of more than 3000 fire service personnel, which found mental wellbeing was negatively impacted by occupational stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, and the challenges of managing the complex network of relationships between life events and occupational stressors.
Carried out by Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and commissioned by the NFCC and The Fire Fighters Charity, the study also found that wellbeing was improved by work engagement, social support, resilient coping, and by both job and life satisfaction.
Exercise, meanwhile, is linked to lower levels of burnout, anxiety, stress, and depression – and that’s why every programme the charity offers includes an appropriate level of physical activity, in a hybrid whole person approach to support.
How the charity helps
The Fire Fighters Charity offers a number of online and face-to-face programmes specifically designed to equip beneficiaries with coping strategies and help them build resilience – with the ultimate aim of improving their health and wellbeing, and improve fire service staff retention.
A key support pathway is the delivery of wellness and behaviour change coaching sessions directly to fire and rescue services. These workshops cover a range of health and wellbeing topics, from managing stress to developing resilience and more. They all help staff develop the skills they need to manage different life events alongside occupational stressors.
The charity also offers an online, self-directed mental wellbeing programme called the Hope Programme. The award-winning programme, run in partnership with social enterprise Hope for the Community, is specifically designed to support overall wellbeing, and is ideal for those living with stress and anxiety.
And alongside these, there’s a host of online courses available on the charity’s website, ranging from a shorter bitesize length to longer, more in-depth courses over six weeks, all on a range of health and wellbeing topics.
A focus on on-call
Alongside this ongoing work, the charity is focusing on reaching more on-call firefighters and their families in the coming months.
Research by Duran et al. in 2018 showed that more than 50 per cent of the firefighters interviewed reported not having enough time to spend with their immediate family, leading to difficulties in their ability to balance their work and home domains.
This work-life balance is a common challenge among on-call firefighters, who often juggle the work with full-time employment, family life, hobbies and their ever-present pager. This juggling act can, for some, prove too difficult and lead to them leaving the job they love – once again showing the major challenge of managing the complex network of relationships between life events and occupational stressors.
In response to this, the charity works in partnership with beneficiaries to develop coping mechanisms, as well as offering advice and guidance on common challenges such as sleep, stress, anxiety and more, through its online courses and programmes.
It’s now preparing to publish a dedicated on-call magazine, packed full of the many support pathways it can offer on-call staff, as well as creating a dedicated space for on-call in My Fire Fighters Charity, its app and online community.
Find out how the charity has been helping fire personnel over the last 80 years by reading our six part series.
