Any word on bringing back the 2 week Firefighter Challenge (FFC) Academies?
They did 3 in 2007, but that was it.
You had to meet certain entry requirements like having an accredited academy cert, EMS, hazmat FRO, and a few other training requirements and certs you would have gotten in the FFA in order to be considered for placement.
The expectation was that you already had the training and experience, so you were given an opportunity to do the FFA tests to demonstrate competency and skip the FFA that was 6 weeks at the time.
If you were accepted, you literally took your written final before lunch on day 1-pass/fail with no retake opportunities-and if you passed the written test, were shown the skills tests that afternoon. Zero classroom or basic skills instruction. Like I said above, you were expected to be proficient coming in day 1.
The rest of week 1 was skills test evolution practice and a few short refresher classes on specific skills like vehicle fire and such.
Week 2 was almost all skills testing and graduation.
The FFCs had a 50%+ failure rate, but I think that was mostly due to the FFCs being a new offering and units not fully understanding what the expectation was, so they ended up sending inexperienced people to FFC and the experienced ones to the full FFA. I think the more FFCs that were held, the higher the pass rate would have been as people learned what to expect.
Those who failed the FFC remained employed and were placed in the next available full FFA with no discipline. They then attended the FFA just like everyone else.
To me, if someone has been to an accredited 12+ week academy and has their SFM FFI along with the other certs you get from the FFA, why not put them through an abbreviated FFC and grant FFA equivalency if the truly are proficient?
That would save a considerable sum in training expenses, help alleviate some of the FFA bottleneck, and free up precious capacity for additional COAs.
Seems like a no brainer to me.