Above: SFD’s Chief spoke to the Select Board about a teen mentoring program he hopes to bring to the fire station soon. (images from meeting video and Town website)
Last month, the Select Board gave the Southborough Fire Chief the greenlight to launch a Jr. Fire Academy for teens ages 14-18.
Southborough Fire Dept. Chief Andrew Puntini is seeking to replicate success he had in a program he launched and led at Foxborough for 15 years. But he’s also seeking to follow a different model, learning from some of the “cons” he experienced there.
Puntini indicated to the board that when Foxborough founded its program in 2009, they used the Boy Scouts’ Explorer program, since that was the model they were informed about. But he experienced both the benefits and downsides to partnering with BSA’s Explorers.
In looking at developing something for the SFD, he decided that developing their own junior academy is a better path for the SFD. It will make it easier to recruit volunteers from his staff (since they won’t have to go through BSA training before getting involved), and allow the SFD to have more control of who they allow to participate. (Under the BSA program, Foxborough is required to keep interested Explorer Scouts in the program until the age of 21.)
The chief hopes the SFD program will be both great for the teens, and lead to potential future SFD employees. That doesn’t appear to be a pipe dream. According to Puntini, Foxborough’s youth mentoring program led to 15 “career hires”.
He envisions a program that would meet for 1-1½ hours about 1-2 times per month. Volunteer leaders would “go over general firefighting topic and try to get the youth interested and engaged”. They would provide mentorship to teens interested in being a firefighter/paramedic in Southborough.
The program will be volunteer led, by his staff of trained professionals. Puntini assured it would have no cost to the Town.
Though he didn’t specify, it’s likely the group will need to do some fundraising or seek grants/sponsorships to cover one significant cost. Because one aspect of the program that the chief said he hopes to eventually mimic is taking junior academy members to the University of Illinois:
They have a fire science technology program out there and they have the state fire academy out of the university and the kids are able to live in the college dorms over the summer and do four days of live hands-on fire training that just isn’t available around here. You talk to some of the career hires that Foxborough has and they’ll look back as that’s one of their highlights of their career
(You can read more about that in a 2014 Foxborough Patch story here.)
Puntini recalled taking teens to the university about four times. Foxborough do that again this summer thanks to a $10,500 grant from the Kraft organization’s Partners In Patriotism. (Since that foundation is specifically to benefit Foxborough residents, it wouldn’t be a funding source SFD can tap into.)
Still, not partnering with the BSA will apparently reduce annual fundraising requirements for just running a program. One of the cons Puntini referenced for a BSA partnership was the trouble Foxborough had raising funds to cover scouting dues each year.
Details on Southborough’s program are still in the development phase. Look out for future announcements about the opportunity, which may kickoff this fall. According to a story in the Community Advocate, that’s when Puntini is hoping to get it up and running.
You can read more about Puntini’s inspiration for the program based on his experience as a teen, plus the perspective of a Southborough firefighter planning to volunteer for the program, in the CA’s story here.
I would love to see this come to fruition.