Implement a Health and Wellness Program
By observing National Firefighter Health Week, you have taken an important step towards health and wellness for yourself as well as for your department. However, your efforts can’t stop here! Keep the momentum going all year long both in your personal health and wellness choices and in your department’s health and wellness initiatives. Make the commitment to get and stay healthy and follow-through by taking the necessary steps and making the lifestyle changes to make this a reality.
Health and wellness is an individual choice, but you can help encourage your entire department to commit to good health by fostering a culture of good health within the department and establishing a health and wellness program. The following resources can help get you started.
Adopt the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program in your department and commit to embarking on a healthy lifestyle and sticking with the program. When you adopt the program, you will have access to special resources and tools to ensure you have everything you need to succeed. And best of all – it’s free! Resources include:
- Fired Up For Fitness Challenge: This tool allows you to track your hours of fitness and challenges you to meet certain goals over the course of a year. As each benchmark is reached, you will receive a reward to keep you motivated and recognize your hard work.
- Securing Sponsors for Department Health and Wellness Programs: This toolkit takes you through the steps needed to identify, reach out to, and follow up with potential sponsors and donors of a department health and wellness program. It also includes customizable templates, tips, talking points, and ideas to help departments through the processs.
- Department Pledge: Encourage your entire department to adopt the program by signing the Department Pledge to get and stay healthy. Submit the Pledge to the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program with 100 percent department compliance and each member of your department will receive a special pin to recognize your commitment to heart-health.
- Tools and Resources: The NVFC has compiled all of the tools and resources you need to help you and your department succeed in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Categories of resources include nutrition, fitness, and general health.
- Department Page: Each registered department has its own page that allows personnel to post success stories and photos to keep their department personnel motivated.
- Message Board: Connect with first responders from across the country who have also made the commitment to become heart-healthy. Utilize the message board feature to ask questions and share best practices and tips.
Lillian Ricardo, NVFC Health and Safety Project Coordinator, describes the benefits of adopting the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program and the many tools and resources available through this initiative to help your department keep it strong all year long. This podcast was recorded in August 2009.
The NVFC Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program developed the Health and Wellness Advocate Workshop to train first responders on how to create and maintain an effective health and wellness program within their department and motivate personnel to focus on health and fitness. The free two-day workshop is taught by ACE-certified instructors from L&T Health and Fitness, an award-winning fitness and health management company. The workshop mixes classroom components with hands-on learning to equip participants with the tools and knowledge they need to succeed as health and wellness advocate in their department.
Department leaders often struggle to implement a health and wellness program due to a variety of reasons, including resistance or lack of motivation from members, the costs associated with implementing a program, and the lack of well-defined requirements. This Guide demonstrates ways to overcome these obstacles, provides direction for developing and implementing a department program, and highlights several existing health and wellness programs and how they have maintained their success over time.
You can keep up motivation and morale for a health and fitness program by making it a challenge among department members. Consider issuing a new health and wellness challenge each month to your department members. Winners of the monthly challenge could receive any number of rewards – from recognition at a department event or on a department bulletin board or newsletter, to a printed award certificate, to a token gift. Local business owners may even be willing to donate products or gift certificates to give to the monthly challenge winners. The Heart-Healthy Firefighter web site posts a new challenge idea or suggestion each month that you can use in your department, or create your own.
FDNNTV.com looks at how the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program can help fire departments “keep it strong all year long,” as well as considerations for maintaining good health throughout the year.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, the International Association of Fire Chiefs, and the American Council on Exercise developed a certification program to identify firefighters who have demonstrated the knowledge and skills required to design and implement a fitness program, improve the wellness and fitness of their departments, assist in the physical training of recruits, and assist the broader community in achieving wellness and fitness. A five-day workshop is available to prepare candidates for the PFT examination.
This resource provides examples of successful programs from the International Association of Fire Fighters and International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Joint Labor Management Wellness-Fitness Initiative. The information is designed to allow new health and wellness program coordinators to benefit from the experience of others.
This web site is a toolkit for workplace health protection and promotion. It provides information, tools, resources, and guidelines to those interested in establishing or enhancing workplace health and safety programs. Topics include workplace health model, assessment, planning and governance, strategies and implementation plans for different health topics, program evaluation, and more.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health developed this initiative to sustain and improve worker health through better work-based programs, policies, and practices. This site provides the elements of effective work-based health programs as well as resources for implementation.
The AHA recognizes employers who go above and beyond when it comes to their employees’ health. Fire departments can utilize the Start! program to access features such as Start! Walking Program and online tracking tool, materials to help promote wellness to department members, newsletter templates for distribution within the department, and more. Departments that implement a health and wellness program that meet the Fit-Friendly Company criteria can apply to receive recognition through the AHA.