The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has released its annual report for 2022, looking at how it supported volunteer firefighters with the likes of training, advocacy, benefits, programs, resources, or addressing critical issues such as health and safety, recruitment and retention, and equipment and funding.

The NVFC ended 2022 with 28,078 members, including individuals, states, and corporations.

Benefits of being an NVFC member include: access to the First Responder Helpline. $10,000 AD&D insurance policy, free access to all courses in the NVFC Virtual Classroom, access to the Volunteer Voices online member community, educational discounts to online universities and fire service training, eligibility to apply for members-only giveaways and scholarships and discounts on products and services from NVFC partners

New for 2022, NVFC members can now take advantage of Amazon Business for special offers and discounts for their fire or EMS department purchases. Also in 2022, the NVFC launched Volunteer Voices Live, a live virtual conversation series hosted on Zoom in which participants discuss a hot topic circulating in the Volunteer Voices community.

The First Responder Helpline

In October, the NVFC launched the First Responder Helpline to provide members with support for a variety of behavioural health issues and work-life stresses. Similar to an employee assistance program, the First Responder Helpline provides NVFC members and their household families with immediate assistance in a crisis moment as well as confidential counseling, resources, and referrals to assistance for a range of issues.

Advocacy

The NVFC has representatives on 20 National Fire Protection Association standards-setting committees and represents the volunteer fire and emergency services on numerous national workgroups and task forces. The NVFC advocates on Capitol Hill for legislation that will benefit the fire and emergency services. Members can also take action through the NVFC Legislative Action Center, which moved to the VoterVoice platform in 2022.

The NVFC issues an Action Alert when there is a legislative priority before Congress, and members can then use the platform to easily contact their Senators and Representative to ask them to support the legislation.

Training

The NVFC Virtual Classroom contains 40 courses, and in 2022, there were 5,888 course registrations. There are also more than 70 recorded webinars in the Virtual Classroom. All courses are free to NVFC members and webinars are free to all. Select courses are available for CEUs.

A comment from the Chair

Stever Hirsch, Chair of the NVFC, said: “This Annual Report highlights our initiatives over the past year. These include the launch of the NVFC First Responder Helpline, which provides our members with support and assistance with behavioral health challenges and a variety of work-life stresses. We were able to bring our signature Training Summit back in full force in 2022 and hosted our second Recruitment & Retention Experience.

“We’ve added 11 new courses to our Virtual Classroom as well as a New Recruit Track that departments can incorporate into their onboarding process. We’ve joined with our partners to offer gear giveaways, product donations, scholarships, and more to help our members be safer and better prepared. And we’ve fought for volunteers on national work groups, standard setting committees, and on Capitol Hill.

“Our mission is to serve you, and we will continue to do so by providing quality programs, resources, advocacy, and training to help you be at your best. If you are not currently a member, I encourage you to join so you can take advantage of all of the benefits of membership.

The report can be found in full here: https://www.nvfc.org/nvfc-2022-annual-report-now-available/