(endorsed) Clerk of the Board*

R1

Palo Alto, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and San José Fire Departments should develop, fund, and implement a plan to increase recruiting efforts to grow their number of female firefighters. Individual plans should be developed by June 2021. Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District Response: Agree regarding the recommendation for a recruiting plan. Central Fire has begun the work and the timing requires further analysis. The Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District (County Fire) agrees with the importance of outreach to potential female firefighters. And County Fire believes that the effort to increase female firefighter applicants should be an integral component of the Department's ongoing broader outreach efforts to increase diversity overall within the Department. County Fire has made several notable changes in the past two years in an effort to increase the overall diversity of Firefighter applicant and candidate pools. These efforts include the addition Serving Santa Clara County and the communities of Campbell, Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, and Saratoga. Santa Clara County Fire Department Civil Grand Jury Response of a new Firefighter (non-engineer) classification that is now used for all recruitments moving forward, the reduction of the minimum age requirement from 21 to 18, the removal of the Firefighter 1 certificate prerequisite, a reduction in the probationary period from 18 months to 12 months, and the use of the California Joint Apprenticeship Committee (Cal-JAC) Firefighter Candidate Testing Center Statewide Eligibility List. County Fire made these changes because these requirements may have created unnecessary barriers to entry into the fire service. The first academy classes produced since the implementation of the above changes are the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 academy classes. These two classes have consisted of a total of 14 firefighters, including two women. County Fire has also recognized and taken action to address the importance of front-end outreach to women and other underrepresented communities. For many years, County Fire has regularly attended career fairs locally and state-wide. Between 2016 and 2020, County Fire participated in eight career fairs and the NorCal First Alarm Girls Fire Camp, utilizing female firefighters as representatives at each event. Additionally, County Fire has been very active within our served jurisdictions with community education events such as fire safety and first aid presentations at elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools; and at community events where members of our Community Education and Risk Reduction Division present along with Firefighters. County Fire consciously tries to utilize a diverse group (gender and race) of instructors for these classes and considers these events as opportunities to promote the fire service as a career path. County Fire also recently updated and modernized its career page on the Department's website, which includes a link to an article titled, "So you want to become a Firefighter," which was written by County Fire's Deputy Chief of Training and articulates the general steps to becoming a qualified candidate for firefighter recruitments. We maintain an active presence on social media with regular Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts. All of these efforts are targeted towards generating and increasing interest for women and men of all backgrounds in a fire service career and hopefully a specific interest in working for the Santa Clara County Fire Protection District. Further, County Fire has an active volunteer program that currently consists of 13 men and three women. County Fire encourages and works with its volunteers to develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities to potentially be strong candidates for future firefighter recruitments. County Fire provides qualified volunteers a direct path to the oral board process when Firefighter recruitments are conducted. In addition to these efforts, we believe that more can be done to reach out to and develop a fire service career interest for women. County Fire has developed a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee made up of nine members, three of which are women. County Fire has tasked the DEI Committee with analyzing the Department's current outreach efforts and researching and proposing new and innovative recruitment outreach concepts. County Fire has $10,000 allocated and available to support the Committee's initiatives and is open to considering the allocation of additional funds if proposed by the DEI Committee. Starting in February 2021, the DEI Committee began meeting formally each month, and has received a full-day training on diversity, equity, and inclusion; implicit bias; and guidance for working together as an effective team. The DEI Committee has been directed to provide a research plan detailing their planned analysis and timeline to develop proposals for new recruitment outreach approaches by May 1, Santa Clara County Fire Department Civil Grand Jury Response 2021. Lastly, County Fire will be providing a semi-annual report to the Santa Clara County Housing, Land Use, Environment, and Transportation Committee detailing the demographics of the Department's filled positions. This report will specify the current percentages of female firefighters, female executive staff, and female employees; and provide similar data for employees of color. This semi-annual reporting will provide data for discussing the Department's outreach efforts to prospective female employees.

R2

Fire departments in the SCC Region should develop, fund, and implement mentoring programs. Mentors should advise and guide potential recruits, new recruits, and current firefighters. Mentoring programs should include visits to local schools and organizations to demonstrate encouragement of female candidates. Individual plans should be developed by June 2021 by Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and San José Fire Departments. Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District Response: The recommendation has been implemented (and has been in place for over 25 years.) County Fire has previously used both formal and informal mentorship programs to help develop prospective and current employees. Currently, County Fire is continuing its strong tradition of informal mentorship that is available to both prospective and current employees. The Department has also made previous efforts at creating a formal, structured and funded mentoring program. However, this program proved to be challenging to facilitate and was largely unsuccessful. County Fire's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee has been tasked with evaluating the findings and recommendations of the Civil Grand Jury related to mentoring and has been asked to provide a workplan demonstrating how the Committee will approach researching and analyzing County Fire's current approach to mentoring, as well as potentially creating a more structured, formal program. The Committee will provide its workplan related to this item

R5

To address the unique challenges of promoting a gender-inclusive work culture for women in the setting of a fire department, each fire department in the SCC Region should develop city- or county-approved plans that focus on the remedies to the challenges of the fire service workplace for women. These plans should be developed by the Mountain View Fire Department, Palo Alto Fire Department, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and San José Fire Department by June 2021. Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District Response: The recommendation has been implemented. County Fire takes equal employment-related issues very seriously, has demonstrated a commitment to training personnel above and beyond the statutory requirements, and has taken steps to promptly investigate and address fair employment issues when they arise. County Fire completed the required harassment-prevention training for supervisors under California Government Code section 12950 in 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 and provides harassment prevention training to new supervisors of hire. Additionally, in October 2017, County Fire hired specialized trainers from the law firm of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore to provide training to supervisory personnel on Best Practices in Personnel Management, which included guidance on creating and maintaining appropriate work environments and reporting obligations related to harassment-related issues. County Fire has also required all supervisory personnel to complete training on the Department's policy against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation and acknowledge County Fire's policy each year since 2018. In addition, in 2020, County Fire began to have all non-supervisory personnel complete training on the organization's policy against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation and acknowledge that policy. County Fire has also worked with legal resources to ensure that its policy against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation is up to date, legally compliant, and easy to understand. Further, County Fire has taken steps to standardize the orientation and overview it uses prior to every interview process for all parties that may be involved, especially those that function in the role of assessors and hiring managers. This orientation methodically reviews the applicable Santa Clara County Fire Department Civil Grand Jury Response elements of County Fire's policy against harassment, discrimination, and retaliation and reviews key principles of implicit bias and common rating/assessing errors. When issues arise related to allegations of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation, County Fire very quickly works to investigate the allegations and to address any substantiated issues, in consultation with subject matter experts and legal resources. County Fire also has a practice of utilizing external, attorney investigators to help ensure a neutral, unbiased approach to the investigation process. This Recommendation and related issues will be referred to our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee for further review and research.

R6

All fire departments in the SCC Region should make correctly fitting uniforms for women available and ensure that a sufficient supply of firefighting and specialty gear is available in women's sizes at the time they begin work. This plan for procurement should be implemented by June 2021 by Mountain View Fire Department, Palo Alto Fire Department, Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, and San José Fire Department. Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District Response: The recommendation has been implemented. County Fire is currently participating in a joint fire academy with other agencies in the Santa Clara County region. When a candidate is provided a conditional offer of employment, they are sent to a fire station to try on refurbished gear. Our agency generally does not provide new turnouts to anyone until the end of their fire academy. The reason for this is that fire-academy activity is very hard on turnouts and at $2,700 a set, it is not cost effective to provide new turnouts for our personnel at the start of the fire academy. However, all candidates have the opportunity to try on various sizes of turnouts during the new hire process and if there are no sizes that meet the needs of the candidate, new turnouts are sized and purchased to make sure everyone has adequately fitting protective equipment. One of the goals of the fire academy is to build our recruits' trust in their personal protective equipment. Walking into a room that is on fire is not a natural thing to do. Doing so takes training to be able to operate in various temperatures, limited space conditions, and various positions (crawling, sliding, climbing, and descending ladders from various heights). With Santa Clara County Fire Department Civil Grand Jury Response respect to equipment, a candidate's ability to perform in a fire academy is mainly about acclimation to wearing heavy gear in high temperatures and confined spaces than it is about dexterity. However, if a recruit of any gender notifies Central Fire leadership that the recruit is