Residents are in safe hands as County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service’s (CDDFRS) trainee firefighters, have just passed their Operational Firefighter Apprenticeship – with three of them achieving some of the best marks in the country.
Firefighters Faith Patterson, Tim Graham and Will Craven finished their apprenticeships with distinctions in every area.
Cheryl Porter, CDDFRS Learning and Development Advisor, commented: "We are proud we can offer excellent training and development opportunities for those joining our service through the apprenticeship programme. CDDFRS was the first Fire and Rescue Service in the country to offer Firefighter apprenticeships and to see our programme be successful makes us feel extremely proud.
“As we embark onto our sixth cohort of apprentices our commitment to the apprenticeship programme couldn't be higher.”
Five years ago in 2017, CDDFRS joined forces with New College Durham to offer firefighter apprenticeships. The ground-breaking and award winning 24-month training course assesses operational competencies against knowledge, skills and behaviours of an operational firefighter. The service now offers the operational firefighter apprenticeship to both apprentice firefighters and wholetime recruits.
In November 2020, the apprenticeship scheme won The Recruitment Excellence award at the North East Regional Apprenticeship Awards and a National Apprenticeship Award for Recruitment Excellence.
Sharon Bennett, Director of Apprenticeships and Partnerships at New College Durham, commented: “We couldn’t be prouder of our CDDFRS apprentices. They have worked extremely hard and each cohort consistently achieves excellent grades. Course 170 have been no exception, maintaining these extremally high standards. The partnership with CDDFRS is extremely important to us as a college. The programme design is a real collaboration that ensures the apprentices finish with the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are essential to succeed in their future careers. We’d like to wish Course 170 congratulations and the best of luck in their careers.”
Chief Fire Officer Stuart Errington said: “We are honoured to work once again with New College Durham to run our award-winning apprenticeship scheme, which we introduced in 2017. The scheme has been hugely successful and has won many awards over the years.
“A big thank you must go out to New College Durham for their continued support each and every year to help us run this amazing scheme.”
