Transcripts For SFGTV Fire Commission 20240713 : vimarsana.c

SFGTV Fire Commission July 13, 2024

Item 2. General Public Comment. Members of the public may address the commission for up on to three minutes on any matter within the commissions jurisdiction and does not appear on the agenda. Speakers shall address their remarks to the commissioners as a whole. Commissioners are not to enter into debate or discussion with the speaker. The lack of a response does not necessarily constitute agreement with or support of statements made during Public Comment. Thank you, madam secretary. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Next item, please. Item 3. Approval of minutes. Discussion and possible action to approve the Meeting Minutes from february 12, 2020. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment regarding the minutes of our last meeting . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Fellow commissioners, what say you . I move to approve. Thank you. Is there a second . Yes, second. Thank you. We have a motion by commissioner cleveland and second buy Vice President feinstein. All in favor please signify by saying aye. Thank you. Item 4 presentation from the San Francisco fire in Safety Education. Presentation by firefighter dwayne eckerdt in connection with the sffisp. A Program Providing Important Safety Information to School Children in San Francisco. Thank you. Please come forward. Good evening. We all know you are very busy. This will be very brief this evening. Our team is in front of you we represent the Fire Department and the foundation to create an Amazing Program called the firefighters in Safety Education program. We are here to introduce the new commissioners and to give the annual update. We will tell you four things. We will tell you what the program is, who we are, how it works, and why we are doing it. First of all, what is sffise . It is a program that delivers a 30 minute presentation from local firefighters to our locallen melocalchildren in edu. Like i said, it is between the foundation and the San Francisco Fire Department. It takes a lot of work to pull it off. We do it every year. Who are we . I am the lieutenant at truck four. I have been in the Fire Department since 2004 and Foundation Volunteer since 2005. I run the San Francisco firefighters and Safety Education Program Since 20102011 school year. I train other Fire Departments throughout the state of california in this curriculum. This is scott. He works for the foundation. He is the sf partner and liaison between the Fire Department and the foundation. He trains Fire Departments across the state. Patrick is here next to me, also, a fire fighter truck 7. He has been in the Department Since 2011. He has been volunteering since 2012. He is the lead presenter. He has done more presentations than any other presenter and most school years does more than all presenters combined. Next year with any luck, he will take over the program from me. He is the face of sffise moving forward. He trains different Fire Departments up and down the state. On my far left is elliott reynolds, head intern. He manages, recruits and trains and is liaison for the three volunteer interns. He does scheduling, volunteers time as an aspiring firefighter working fulltime and going to the San Francisco college fire academy. He just bragged that he hosted a fundraiser for us and delivered enough funds for a box for every single station in our city. All 44 stations have the brandnew box thanks to him. We are excited to have him managing the team of interns. We have currently three interns. They are tasked with scheduling, communicating with schools, pick up and delivery of the boxes and preand post tests which you will learn about in a second. The other part of the team are volunteer presenters. Of course, we couldnt deliver any of this unless we had people to deliver the information in the schools. Our volunteer presenters we have 49 volunteers that present in the schools across the city in every neighborhood in San Francisco. The chief office in the administration. We have a lot of support from the chiefs office. If we didnt we couldnt operate in the schools. Sylvia does the firefighter details and a lot of general orders and administrative duties and liaison for the Fire Department and the Burn Foundation. Without the chiefs support we couldnt do this. It is a big team. We do a lot of good. I told you i would tell you how it works. It is simply a program where we detail schools that have previously been contacted by the intern team and scheduled. We detail a fire fighter in uniform to go to the school to deliver a 30 minute presentation. For k through 3 and 30 minutes for 4, 5, 6. Same key points, a little different style. Firefighters are asked to take a box with them. It has 12 items in it. It is a script and outline. Just in case the firefighters are nervous they can essentially just read right off the script. The presentation that when we do the trainings we let them know if you are nervous for the first two times read it off the script. No problem with that. I will take you there 30 minutes. The veteran presenters like patrick are accompanying the newer presenters until they get the feel of the good presentation. Then the firefighter simply delivers the message to the Elementary School kids. They have turnouts, clean uniforms, a prop box and go deliver the message. They are either at the station already or intern Team Delivers them. They also deliver a preand post test to get the metrics how the kids are learning and if they are learning the information. Without a lot of slides and data, it works well and the kids learn a lot. Examples of the key points. Stop, drop, roll. Stay low some smoke. Cool the burn, dial 911, dont hide. 4, 5, 6 graders get consequences of playing with matches and home escape plans. The kids get a visit from the fire engine as well. As soon as the presentation is over the fire engine comes to concrete the concepts we are trying to teach them. It is also really exciting for them to see the crew of firefighters and fire engine. The idea for us is the kids are taking the information home and sharing with brothers, sisters, grandparents, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles. Not only are we reaching kids and families and communities. This is all free. We dont charge for any of this stuff. We want to make sure children have the information to pass on to families and communities because our mission as firefighters and the Burn Foundation missions is to reduce burns and fatalities. We are doing an excellent job in our community. Why sffise . In 2001 there was no public educator provision for burp prevention and burn prevention and fire prevention. A firefighter krieger contacted the Burn Foundation to say we can make this program great. That continued and in 2010 and 2011, i took the program over. Since then we are educating between 7,000 to 15,000 kids every Single School year in this program. The program under goes professional educator reviews, grade level appropriate net, nfpa tracts. We have master educators pourover to make sure it is appropriate. We go through to make sure it is accurate, uptodate and appropriate. The information is 100 reliable. So much so in 2015, San Francisco Unified School District mandated this would be taught in allen men tree schools in San Francisco. We are in all of the Elementary Schools in San Francisco. We are able to deliver the program. It helps the community. As firefighters we stick to our mission to serve. As i said, we have 49 enrolled volunteers. I would like patrick to talk about the firefighters side of it and shed light on what the firefighter experience is for those volunteers. Good evening. The fireman doing the presentation is one of the few things where we get nothing but positive feedback. Often times dealing with the public we get less than positive response to the attempt to resist. This is a fun opportunity to really take in a lot of love. During my time helping with this program across the state, i have seen attempts to use fire cadets or nonfirefighters to present the information and it doesnt seem to have the same effect. When we walk in in our uniform with our gear, especially being in San Francisco where the kids see us on the street. I have had firefighter patrick call to me and kids on the sidewalk and in grocery stores. There is something powerful when the child knows we are a fire fighter presenting the information. They take it seriously and retain it. That is the best part. We have volunteers at every firehouse, prop kits in every firehouse. It is a smooth and easy transition for the firefighter, one or two presentations a year and two hours out of the day and you get a big reward back. We appreciate your report. Elliott, our lead intern. Hello, commissioners. They filled you in my role pretty well. I will be short and sweet. I have been with the program for three years. We have had amazing growth in those three years. I want to thank you all forgiving us the cubicle at headquarters which is a huge help. We have three volunteers besides me who do if work. Scheduler and two logistics guys that Work Together to get it done. Last semester we reached 2755 students. Usually the fall semester is slower so for the spring semester, we have reached out to 51 schools and have scheduled 11 schools. Our numbers should be on track with the higher end of the usual goal. We are still doing our best to continue to add schools to the list, both public, private and alternative schools as well. Thank you. I am sure you would like to hear from scott as well as far as the Burn Foundation side of this. Good evening, commissioners. The Burn Foundation works with burn survivors throughout the state of california. Our goal is to put ourselves out of business. These guys are platinum standard of getting into schools and teaching prevention. The testing they talked about is testing not only what they learn year after year but how much they retain. We are incredibly successful in this an appreciate the effort fr being the front line forgetting the prevention method to the students of San Francisco. Thank you. That is the four teams we promised to tell you what the program is, who we are, why it works and how it works. We want to say thank you again to the administration and Fire Commission for continued support. We look forward to continue to educate San Francisco children, and we look forward to another great year and more education. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your presentation. Is there any Public Comment . Public comment is closed. I will go to my fellow commissioners. Beginning with the chief of the department. She is not a commissioner but her name is up there. I can defer to my other commissioners if they would like to go first. First of all, hello, my friends, hello. Thank you so much. It is great to see you guys here. Thank you so much for the work you guys do. I know you dont get paid for this and you do this because you feel like it is really important work. Thank you. You are not just the Gold Standard for our department. Thanks and we will be happy to continue supporting you. I know sylvia is a great Contact Person for you. Thank you for everything, all you do. Thank you, chief. Commissioner cleveland. Thank you, madam president. I would like to echo the chiefs comments. You guys are doing terrific work that serves the citizens of the city by educating children on fire safety. I would like to offer my thanks. Keep up the good work. A couple questions. You talk about the 12 item in the prop box. What are they . It is essentially the 12 items relate to each key point we have as far as stop, drop and roll, cool a burn, dial 911, highfive a fire fighter to give the kids a visual representation and keep the presenters on track. If we lay out a smoke detector, smoke alarm. Who has seen one of these. They can see it. Do you see one in this room right now. It is to solid fithe knowledge. There is a teddy bear and telephone for dialing 911, a blanket and stop, drop and roll sign. Whawhat is the prop box. A box full of props. I was hoping you would bring it in. We will bring you one. We will do the whole presentation for you. I wanted to ask you. Do you video . I think it would be something important to put on television on our government channel. Yes, absolutely. I am only stuttering i am in the video. I cant imagine what that would be like on the government channel. We have training videos and the full presentation. That is one of the resources we offer the firefighter volunteers in Safety Education. Com we have outlines and scripts and videos broken down by chapter. Any firefighter with a presentation can go and watch the entire presentation from somebody that has done it many, many times, myself and firefighter patrick. We are on there doing each and every chapter. They can look to see that is the stop, drop and roll. It is half a hour. The entirety. Have you given that to sfgovtv . No. Then you should. We can, absolutely. They need to run that education for everyone out there that watches television. If they cant. They dont have children in school they can still learn about keeping themselves safe from getting burned. It would be very important to get a broader audience to what you are doing for the children. Thank you you. Testing. Do the kids get tested after the half hour . They do. The idea we need to know how much they are learning. If this is effective or not we give them a pretest which the intern Team Delivers to the school. It is five questions. What do you use to cool a burn, ice cream . There are examples. Then we match that up with the posttest which they receive within 24 hours after we have dubour presentation have done our presentation. We try to get the same schools captured and can tell if they are learning more on the pretest year after year. What things are more difficult . Often times we find this one question lots of kids are getting wrong on the pre. They are not getting it wrong on the post. We know that is important. Our cool the burn question. What do you use to cool the burn . Ice cube, cool water and icecream cone. A lot of kids put ice. We mention that we dont want you to use ice. This is why. We want you to use cool water. Posttest. 90 get it right. We are teaching them and the repeated exposure shows over time they learn more and more. Why dont you use ice . We dont use ice because ice is so cold that frozen water sticks to burn skin. When you pull it off, it might pulloff your skin. Are these presentations done in spanish or chinese . Yes, these presentations are done every year in spanish and chinese. We just finished two spanish presentations last week in the mission. We have printed materials in i think 11 languages, scott. Updated seven languages. We are looking to expand to as many as possible, probably the goal is 20. This is a fantastic program. Keep up the good work. Thank you for all the hours and time that you have put into this. The fact that you are educating our youth throughout the city in fire safety is a huge contribution. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you very much, madam president. First of all, lieutenant, you started this program in 2010, 10 years . I just want to recognize that commitment and thank you for that. Firefighter pat. I have seen you as well. Thank you very much for your service and participation. Elliott reynolds, intern, three years. Thank you very much for that. Scott, i didnt catch your last name. Wertz. In terms of association. What is your role at the foundation . So am the Northern California regional manager. My initial interaction with the foundation was as a survivor. I was burned in 2013, and i was greeted by the foundation while still in the hospital where i got to see the positive effects and meet other burn survivors. I came on as a volunteer and as Fulltime Position representing Northern California in prevention and survivor services. I am glad you share that with us. I want to thank all of you for your service. Commissioner cleveland asked the questions i was going to ask in terms of language which makes so much sense in terms of the children you are trying to approach. Half an hour curriculum. How does that work . The instructor allows you to come in at a certain time or how does that work . When we call the schools or when we schedule the schools, it is 30 minute curriculum to cover the points and 30 minutes for 4 through 6. It is different. The curriculum and script is written based on at tension span for Elementary School kids to keep at 30 minutes. That answers one of the quest

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