People leaving children at the station semi-unattended at a volunteer station

[u/statuscaffeinepticus]

Hello all,

I am a volunteer firefighter/AEMT for a volunteer fire department. We have a station that is fully equipped for living out of (used to have a live-in program for college students) that a handful of people use. We have a TV room, bunk room, and a gym.

Several times now, I have arrived at the station and found children semi-unattended in the TV room. If it’s only for a short time it’s no big deal, but it does get kind of frustrating when the on-duty crew has to tiptoe around the kids. At previous departments, sometimes members would bring their kids for a tour or something. However, they were not left unattended in the living areas of the crews.

Once all the station duties are done, hit the gym, run calls and do paperwork, training, cook dinner, it’s nice to kick back and relax. It feels disrespectful to be leaving your children in the way of the crew(s). This is a fire department not a daycare?

This is mostly a vent and to see if anyone else has dealt with this.

[u/Crab-_-Objective]

If there isn’t one already there should be an SOP about non-members at the station.

[u/statuscaffeinepticus → u/Crab-_-Objective]

I’ll have to check and see if we have one. If not that’s definitely something to bring up to the officers.

[u/Crab-_-Objective → u/statuscaffeinepticus]

Ours is basically that non-members (family, friends, visitors) need to be accompanied by a member while in the station regardless of their age. So what you said elsewhere about the parents running calls definitely wouldn’t fly for us.

[u/statuscaffeinepticus → u/Crab-_-Objective]

Yeah thats a reasonable policy. If they want to show their kids the trucks and the station, great! Leaving them unattended until the duty crew arrives not so much.