TargetSafety, a provider of online enterprise risk management solutions for public entities, is breaking down barriers by delivering an online forum for all its PreventionLink™ clients, which include more than 2,500 fire departments, to share valuable training and compliance resources, regardless of department size or location.
The PreventionLink Community Resources application offers free materials that are contributed by the nation’s leading fire and EMS departments, schools, municipalities, risk pools and other public entities.
The resources include training presentations, educational videos, inspection forms and other compliance management and loss control documents that help organizations develop custom training and compliance programs at a fraction of the cost it would take to develop from scratch.
Smaller fire departments with tight budgets can access materials submitted by large metropolitan fire departments and use them for their own programs. Currently, more than 20 metropolitan fire departments use PreventionLink and can upload their training and educational materials.
PreventionLink clients can easily search the robust file-sharing application for relevant items; each item is tagged with keywords and topics, and clients can rate and comment on the submitted materials. The application will soon enable users to share training and information among groups and departments within a particular region, defined by the administrator.
Contributors can determine which uploaded pieces are shared with the entire PreventionLink community and which ones are shared only within their specific departments and organizations.
PreventionLink also features online tools that enable departments to track station-level tasks and training, create custom courses and tests, document and record all certifications and licenses, deliver more than 200 hours of fire/EMS refresher curriculum, manage training events and host web meetings.
“TargetSafety has developed the YouTube for the fire service,” said Neal Berryman, Training Division Battalion Chief for the San Luis Obispo City (CA) Fire Department. “Fire departments across different cities and regions all have very different training materials, tools and resources that are valuable across the board. By sharing information, we don’t have to worry about the cost of developing our own materials. We can hop on the site, run a search and repurpose what we find to meet our own needs.”
“PreventionLink Community Resources not only helps us develop our own training, it helps us know what is going on out there and what other areas different departments are focusing on,” said Pat Murphy, Training Officer for the Vista (CA) Fire Department. “It is a huge benefit for us to be able to access other departments’ (including metros) training materials. Communication is key in this industry, not only internally but externally as well. This is a valuable tool that will really help keep those communication lines open and offer a new way to increase our own presence out there.”
