Fire and Safety Australia’s commitment to providing emergency response and safety training during the COVID19 Crisis

Greetings from Steve McLeod – Director – Fire and Safety Australia (FSA).

I wanted to reach out to you personally regarding uncertainty arising due to COVID-19 coronavirus and reassure you that the safety of our customers, our team, and our community is and always has been a top priority.

Our training is safe and it is business as usual for us to provide high-quality safety and emergency response training with the addition of the precautionary and preventative measures highlighted below, and offer additional methods of conducting live training via video link with our highly experienced trainers.

We are pleased to report that there have been no suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 amongst the FSA employee group, and our training remains safe for learners based on our procedures highlighted below and we will continue to support our clients with emergency response and safety training.

FSA has established an internal working group (led by the FSA Director Steve McLeod and FSA CEO Tony Metcalf) to coordinate all planning in relation to COVID-19 including implementing safeguards that meet official Australian Government COVID19 Guidelines as well as additional steps to minimise the potential impact to our clients and the FSA team.

As part of this planning process we are examining all options to leverage our national network to ensure limited disruption to service provision and confirm our commitment to providing safe and positive training experiences; as such we have introduced a range of measures ensure our clients’ and employees’ safety at each of our venues across Australia, and at client venues also.

Measures to safeguard training at FSA’s training locations and at client sites:-

Coordinating all COVID-19 planning through a centralised working group chaired by the FSA Director
Development of a Coronavirus (COVID-19) Action Policy and plan which applies to all team members, contractors and sub-contractors.
Ensuring, where possible, our team is set up for the potential of working remotely, facilitating remote access worksites ensuring no interruption to training support services including customer service and scheduling.
Reinforcing to our teams the need for basic hygiene practices such as handwashing, the use of hand sanitisers and daily cleaning of workstations.
Discouraging all employees from any non-essential international travel until further notice.
Ensuring all FSA employees who are returning, or have recently returned from any international travel within the last 14 days, regardless of location, self-isolate for 14 days.
Ensuring any FSA employee who is in or has been in close contact with a confirmed case of COVID19 is not permitted to enter any FSA worksite; with ongoing monitoring of their health for 14 days.
Any employee who exhibits flu-like systems is not permitted to enter any FSA worksite, they are required to seek medical advice and obtain clearance to return to work from their treating practitioner before entering an FSA facility or client site, and must monitor their health for 14 days.
All visitors and students to Fire and Safety Australia training centres will be required to fill out a health self-declaration of recent travel, close contact with a COVID19 diagnosed person, and flu-like symptom;
- Anyone that answers yes and is considered to be at risk, will not be permitted to attend our training centres or to complete training.

Cleanliness, hygiene and additional FSA precautions

Placing reminders in all of our training facilities about the importance of hand washing and stopping the spread of the virus
Training rooms to have more space between participants to reduce close personal contact
Using a virus cleaning agent on high touch-point areas and surfaces including tables, chairs, training equipment. Cleaning is to be conducted immediately after all training sessions, as well as daily and weekly to ensure that precautionary measures are taken to reduce the risks to participants
First Aid training
- additional precautions in place where rescue breaths are not required onto a manikin
- additional face barriers, gloves, and standard precautions used so that participants are not exposed to close contact with any other student

We also ask for your support in keeping our venues clean and safe and encourage you and all of our clients and employees to:

Always practice good hygiene and wash hands frequently
Cover coughs/sneezes, dispose of tissues hygienically and make use of the available hand sanitiser
Refrain from attending training if feeling unwell to ensure a safe and comfortable experience for everyone

Our responsibility for the continued health and safety of you, our community is crucial and this proactive planning is to ensure our commitment to you is not disrupted during this time.

At this stage FSA has no plans to cancel any face to face training, however we are conscious that in this current climate there could be a need for us to act swiftly to meet the needs of our diverse client base. Rest assured alternative arrangements can be organised for clients that want alternative options to face to face training sessions if necessary, introducing the ability to run virtual classrooms via the latest video-conferencing technology (that is easy to install via zoom video conferencing meetings and we are experienced in conducting training and meetings via this medium). We have always used this internally and can utilise this with our clients at 24 hours notice for our training courses.

FSA can run instructor led classroom training and skills demonstration for your participants via a video link with live training with our instructors. This is 1000x better than online training (which can lack trainer interaction and is often non-accredited). By choosing this method your participants can receive questions and answers and be guided through training by our highly experienced instructors. This nationally recognised training (provided that all nationally recognised ASQA requirements are met) provides more flexibility in the event that you cannot complete face to face training (which is safe, permitted under all government issues COVID19 requirements, and we are taking every precaution).

If training is delivered via video link, some assessments may need to be carried out separately for some high risk and heavily practical courses- this may be able to completed via video, or at a later date in person or 1 trainer-1 student). However, classroom training and skills demonstrations can be run via video link using easily downloadable and accessible software that can be accessed via a phone, tablet, laptop, or computer screen. Our customer service and instructor team can provide you with this flexibility within 24 hours to ensure that your employees are trained in safe work practices and that they are able to respond to an emergency. There is no need to postpone training with these various options on how you can conduct your training and keep your employees safe.

Like you, we are closely monitoring the situation as it develops and are dedicated to upholding our strict safety standards to ensure the health and wellbeing of our Fire and Safety Australia community. Our leadership team will meet regularly to review the latest information from health authorities and the Australian government and ensure any recommended precautions are appropriately adopted.

For the latest advice, information and resources, please visit:

We also have the FSA medical division which provides Paramedics, Nurses, and emergency response personnel to client sites on a short-term or long-term basis. If you have any requirement for healthcare staff to assist your workplace, FSA has over 80+ professionals that we can mobilise at short notice to help you and your team – please email tony.metcalf@fsaus.com.au or steve.mcleod@fsaus.com.au FSA Director with any queries about these on-site medical services, as we currently provide these services for Australia’s largest Mining and Oil and Gas companies in both city and remote environments.

We will keep you up to date with the latest health information via our Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram pages. We will followup with further correspondence in the next 7 days. Our training is safe and we are taking precautions above which has been recommended by government authorities. Please call us on 1300 88 55 30 with any questions

Kind Regards,

Steve McLeod
Director
Fire and Safety Australia

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