2015 Arrives!

New Year, New Challenges, New Opportunities

In the past year first responders encountered a number of extremely difficult challenges. There were large-scale responses and small-town tragedies, there were personal tragedies and global budget problems; but through it all first responders around the world shouldered the weight of protecting those in need.

2015 arrives with a world of potential. What is it going to be when it grows up?

 

2014 was unique in many ways, but like every year since I became a member of this community what I saw and heard this past year made me proud to count myself among the brotherhood of emergency responders. Looking forward to 2015 I know that, despite the challenges that will await us, we can look forward to the opportunities to better ourselves, improve the care that we provide our communities, and strengthen the bond of brotherhood among those with whom we serve, even those we may not yet have met.

So in that vein RescueDigest is jumping into 2015 with a new look, improved design, and a renewed commitment to bring first responders like you the tools to develop your leadership skills, your education, and advance your career in the coming year.

Consistency
I know that if I find a site useful, I want to know that I can go back to it at least every week and find something new. We’re committed to continuing to provide new content on the website at least weekly, new news, interviews, and tips-you-can-use podcasts at least monthly and the best of leadership, education and career development for emergency services daily through our Facebook page, Twitter feed, or Google+ page (where you can “like“, “follow” or “plus” us by the way).

Columns
We’ve re-designed RescueDigest to make it nicer to look at and to make it easier for you to find individual topics and resources. We’ve also reorganized our regular columns so you can directly access any Podcasts, Essential Resources, Web Site Size-Up, Coming Conferences, Goal of the Week, and Editorial content from any page. These are the columns that you can continue to count on to bring you the tools to help you, help others in 2013!

Contributors
When we began in 2009 we picked the topics of Leadership, Education and Career Development (including improving field skills) because these topics are vital to the success of every emergency services system and critical for individual responders, regardless of the color vehicle you drive (or, for that matter, booth you sit in). When I say we, I’m talking about me, the dude writing this, Rommie Duckworth, and my wife & partner, the person who keeps RescueDigest running, Elizabeth Duckworth. As educators, we find resources for emergency responders through the people that we work with and programs that we teach all across North America. We’re going to keep sharing them through RescueDigest, as will other RescueDigest contributors like Karen Facey, Mike Trenck, Roy Gagne, and Candice Miller.

And that’s where YOU come in.
If you’d like to contribute content for RescueDigest columns, let us know. We’re not interested in product pitches or personal promotion, but if you’ve got something great to share with the RescueDigest community, tell us what it is. Like it says on the ABOUT page; RescueDigest exists to create, promote and disseminate ideas from across emergency services to help you solve problems in your community.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to try harder to do more of, better, in 2015. So, from RescueDigest, best wishes to you, your family and everyone in your service for a happy & prosperous New Year!