The purpose of this 6-day course is to empower students with the ability to create, evaluate and defend public policy in their home community. The course is also designed to facilitate understanding of how codes and regulations can be used as an effective component of fire prevention, fire mitigation and overall community risk reduction. A risk assessment is used to prioritize risk.
The course presents the stages of the policy process, which include:
- Problem identification and agenda setting.
- Policy formation.
- Issue resolution and policy adoption.
- Implementation and application.
- Evaluation.
Students desiring the knowledge and skills of how to utilize public policy as part of a strategic community risk reduction process. This includes candidates who have previous experience with code development, implementation and enforcement, as well as those who have little or no experience but would like to learn more about the process.
The target audience is fire chiefs, fire marshals, inspectors, code practitioners, plans reviewers, building officials, fire and life safety educators, and fire and emergency medical services officers.
Selection priority will be given when 2 people of a jurisdiction apply together (state, county or local entity). 1 member must be from emergency services; the other member can be from emergency services, building, health, law enforcement, etc.