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With over 17 years of experience in emergency management in the resources sector, Fire and Safety Australia (FSA) have experienced many different opinions about emergency services leadership training, and the types of training courses that emergency services leaders should undertake. This article is designed to provide more context to this discussion so that each organisation can make informed decisions that are right for their specific circumstances.
Fire and Safety Australia (FSA) has seen on many occasions where well-meaning ERT leaders and captains have not been given structured leadership training. This can then mean that during emergency responses, there is a lack of confidence and cohesion to result in the best possible outcomes. Within the resources industry we feel that this is an area that needs more focus and that ERT leaders and coordinators would benefit from adopting a group based learning approach, where peer to peer learning and observation is as important as a structured training courses.
Historically, some resources emergency services leaders came through the ranks of volunteer or professional State and Territory government Fire services. This meant that these leaders had likely received qualifications under the Public Safety Training Package, and structured emergency response leadership training. However, in the resources industry there is a wide variety of both structured and unstructured emergency response leadership training, with many organisations appointing someone to a position, and not training them or preparing them for success in their role.
Emergency Response Leadership within the Australian State and Territory Fire Services
The Public Safety Training Package remains the core training package for the Australian State and Territory Fire Services and covers levels from Cert II in Public Safety (Firefighting and Emergency Operations), and qualifications that progress through the Cert III, Cert IV, Diploma, and through to Advanced Diploma level. Generally new firefighters commenced at the Cert II and Cert III level, and complete promotional courses to get to Cert IV and Diploma Public Safety, whereby they are leading teams as Leading Firefighters, Station Officers, Senior Station Officers, and above.
The State fire services have always trained their leaders from within, with a combination of theoretical and practical training, and generally minimum experience requirements of 5+ years as a Full-time Firefighter before applications could be made to undertake training for a Station Officer or similar leadership role. Selection into promotional courses was based often on both testing (theoretical and practical) and selection (interview panels). Following an intake into a promotional course, the training was highly structured and often run by senior officers with experience in operations within these roles.
A benefit of this program was that there was a high degree of learning from the cohort of students, as well as structured learning. A great way to train emergency response leaders is to have them observe other students going through exercises as the Incident Commander, and observing how they made decisions, thus learning from the positive decisions and perhaps the mistakes that were made. Learning from your peers in a cohort environment is a great way to increase the speed of learning with realistic training experiences. The combination of emergency services work of 5+ years and intense promotional courses with theory and practical training meant that the State Fire Services were able to properly prepare emergency services leaders for their important role.
Emergency Response Leadership in the resources industry in Australia
The resources industry operates in a different manner due to the industry mixture of both Full-time emergency services officers and volunteer emergency response team members across the industry, with each site organising and managing emergency services teams differently. Whilst in the State fire services promotional training is highly structured and often run as a leadership training courses with a cohort of participants, the resources industry (which often has 15-30 ERT members or ESO’s at a mine site and maybe 3-4 emergency response captains or leaders often works in a different context. In the resources industry Emergency Response Team (ERT) members whom are trained, generally complete the Certificate III Emergency Response and Rescue training course, either in full over 19-25 days (depending on the units of competency selected) or more typically over a 6-12 month period with block training.
Emergency Services Leadership Challenges in the resources industry
Many emergency services leaders in the resources industry have not had the opportunity to complete structured emergency response leadership training, with many never undertaking formal training in incident command and leadership. Often the most senior ERT member with the most years of experience will be in the role of captain or leader. Often they learn these important leadership skills like RECEO, Size-up, Tactical plans, and dynamic risk assessment through observation and years of experience, but not through structured training due to a lack of available incident command leadership training available, and a mixture of skillsets and experience of people fulfilling these roles.
Some ERT leaders come from a volunteer or professional fire service background, some from a military background, some have had formal training, and some have had no formal training. Therefore, there is a wide variety of skillsets and experience for emergency services leaders and coordinators, as there is currently little standardisation within a training context for these leaders within the resources industry in Australia. Many ERT leaders and captain perform a great job at this critically important role with limited training. Often new emergency services leaders who have been in the industry less than 5 years, or who have not attended many large scale emergency responses can struggle with the challenges of leading teams during large scale real-life emergencies that are rare occurrences in the resources industry.
Mines Rescue competitions are a great way to train new ERT leaders and expose them to high intensity and realistic emergency response situations that they may face. FSA has been involved in sponsoring and adjudicating at many of these competitions for 15+ years and we have often found that new leaders can really struggle with a lack of structured training. We see a real gap in the type of structured training for new Emergency response leaders in the resources sector. We feel that there is a missed opportunity of the resources industry providing structured training with a group learning approach and working with your peers to really learn the fundamentals of emergency services leadership, by observing and participating in emergency response exercises.
FSA’s view is that emergency services leadership should involve a combination of AIIMS (Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System) courses, as this is the fundamental incident management framework used by State and Territory emergency services (and many other organisations) in Australia, and hands on theoretical and practical instruction on how to run an incident, as part of a group of learners, taught by very experienced emergency services instructors.
We believe that one of the best ways of teaching new leaders is for them to observe other leaders progressing through emergency response exercises and watching how they run an incident, and then applying these learnings and observations, with a balance of theoretical knowledge in simulated emergency response exercises. We feel that the resources industry in Australia could really benefit from structured emergency response leadership and coordination training, and a group learning environment for peer to peer learning. We feel that by the resources industry investing further into structured emergency response leadership training, that we will better prepare our emergency response leaders for success in managing complex emergency response incidents.
We would love to hear your comments and feedback about what you think the industry can do to improve leadership training and preparation for emergency services leaders within the resources industry. Contact us today.
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Author: Steve McLeod
CEO & Founder of Fire & Safety Australia
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