Workplace Violence and Harassment Program

This program is the written, auditable system that keeps members from being hurt by other people: by patients and bystanders at calls, by members of the public who walk into a station, and by one another. When it is working, every call with a violence flag is staged until police say it is safe; every crew arrives together and knows its way out; every member can name the exit word and has a working duress button; every threat, assault and harassment complaint is reported, investigated and answered; the member who was hurt or threatened is debriefed, supported and told what changed; nobody is hazed, bullied or harassed inside the department and everyone believes that a complaint will be taken seriously, including one about a supervisor; and the department’s written risk assessment and prevention plan are current, consulted on with the JOHSC and read by the people they protect. The program adopts the full architecture of a provincial violence regulation as department policy whether or not the applicable regulation names fire services (J26 Workplace Violence), because the hazard does not depend on a list. It is owned by a line officer through the Medical First Response Program Improvement Team for scene safety, run in partnership with {{Human Resources}} for harassment, verified by the health and safety officer and consulted on by the JOHSC.

This module is switched on for every department. It answers Program Profile Worksheet Part C question 21 (01 Program Profile Worksheet): any member. The scene safety elements (5.4 to 5.8) apply to every department that attends calls where people are in crisis, which is every department; a department without medical first response keeps them because fires, alarms and motor vehicle collisions produce the same encounters. The harassment elements (5.10 to 5.12) apply to every workplace in every province and territory (J27 Workplace Harassment). The active threat and rescue task force element (5.8) is a decision the department records, not a default.

Terms are consistent with 06 Glossary and Acronyms.

• Workplace violence: the threatened, attempted or actual use of physical force by a person, other than a member acting within their duties, that causes or could cause injury to a member, including a threat that gives a member reasonable cause to believe they are at risk (the common form in provincial and territorial violence rules; J26 Workplace Violence).
• Harassment: objectionable or offensive conduct, comment or display that a person knows or ought to know is unwelcome, including bullying; a single significant incident can be harassment (the common form in provincial and territorial harassment rules; J27 Workplace Harassment).
• Bullying and hazing: repeated or ritual conduct that humiliates, isolates or intimidates a member, however it is labelled; treated as harassment in this program.
• Caution flag: a note held by dispatch against an address or a person recording a risk of violence, read to the responding crew before arrival (element 5.4).
• Staging: holding the apparatus and crew out of sight and sound of an address until the scene is declared safe or the officer records a reason to proceed (element 5.5).
• Exit word: a single agreed word that any member may say to make the whole crew leave a scene at once, without discussion (element 5.6).
• Duress function: the emergency button or feature on a portable radio that signals dispatch that a member needs immediate help.
• Debrief: a short structured conversation led by the officer after an incident of violence, distinct from a clinical intervention and from psychological debriefing (element 5.14).
• Learning firewall: the rule that information gathered for learning (learning teams, after-action reviews, debriefs) is never used for discipline, and that conduct concerns go to a separate process run by different people (Incident Investigation and Learning Program).
• Prevention plan: the written set of controls, procedures and training that answers a risk assessment finding of significant risk (element 5.3).
• Psychological safety: the shared belief in a team that it is safe to speak up, ask, admit error and challenge (Edmondson, 1999)DOI.
• Rescue task force: a team of responders operating in a warm zone under police protection during an active threat or hostile event (NFPA 3000, 2024).
• Reprisal: any adverse action against a member because they reported, witnessed or took part in a process under this program; the applicable OHS statute also prohibits it (J07 Right to Refuse and Reprisal Protection).

Full citations and section numbers live in 02 Standards and Law Master Map. The body of this program is generic; the rules, numbers and clocks that differ by province and territory are on the topic pages listed under Jurisdiction requirements.

R = responsible, A = accountable (one per row), C = consulted, I = informed. Generic roles are in 01 Roles and Responsibilities; Program Improvement Team roles are in 06 Program Improvement Teams.

Each element states the requirement, the minimum method, the evidence or record, and the stage.

Requirement. The department adopts this program and Policy - Workplace Violence and Harassment in writing, approved by the fire chief, consulted on with the JOHSC and the bargaining agents, and posts a one-page violence prevention statement in every station and workplace, as violence regulations commonly require (J26 Workplace Violence). The statement says the department does not accept violence against members, that every incident is reported and investigated, and how to report. (S1)

Minimum method. Adopt the policy; complete the placeholders; file the consultation record; post the statement from toolkit T4 on the station notice board and in the apparatus bay; list the program in the document register.

Evidence. Signed policy; posted statement; JOHSC minutes.

Requirement. The department must complete a written assessment of the risk of violence to members that considers: past incidents at this department (every report in the last five years, including verbal threats); incidents at similar workplaces (other fire departments, paramedic services and police in the region); the circumstances of the work (call types, times of day, lone response, transport, restraint, public education and inspection work, station public areas); the interactions the work requires; and the layout and security of each workplace, the factors violence regulations commonly name (J26 Workplace Violence). The JOHSC must be consulted during the assessment and must receive a copy. Multiple temporary workplaces of the same kind (for example, private homes on medical calls) may be assessed collectively where the applicable regulation allows it. (S1)

Minimum method. Complete toolkit T1 (by call type) and T2 (by location) with the team, the JOHSC consultant and dispatch; pull five years of reports and the police service’s call data for the area where it is shared; walk every station’s public areas; score each line for likelihood and severity and rate it with the risk matrix in 03 Hazard Profile and Risk Register Method; record the controls in place and the controls needed, and log each control needed in the Corrective Action Register with a priority on the department’s scale, P1 (Imminent) to P4 (Improvement).

Evidence. Completed T1 and T2; JOHSC copy acknowledged; corrective actions for controls needed.

Requirement. The assessment must be reviewed and revised when a new type of violence occurs at this or a similar workplace, when the work or the workplace changes significantly (a new service level, a new station, renovation, a change in dispatch), on a regulator’s order, and in any case at least every five years, or sooner where the applicable regulation sets a shorter interval (J26 Workplace Violence). Where the assessment finds a significant risk, which it will for scene work, the department must have a written prevention plan containing the posted statement, the control measures or code of practice, and the procedures for training, reporting and responding to incidents, consulted on with the JOHSC and reviewed at least every five years, or sooner where the applicable regulation requires. (S1)

Minimum method. The prevention plan is sections 5.4 to 5.13 of this note plus the SWP and the forms; record its adoption date and the review due date in the team’s work plan; log the five-year review as a calendar item in 04 Annual Program Cycle and Calendar.

Evidence. Dated plan; review dates; change log.

Requirement. Members must receive the information the department holds about the risk of violence at a call before they arrive, including the history of violent individuals and addresses where the law permits the department to hold and share it (J10 Privacy and Health Information; J26 Workplace Violence). The department holds a written agreement with its dispatch provider, the police service and the emergency health services provider on how caution flags are created, shared, reviewed and removed. (S1)

Minimum method. Create a caution flag whenever a violence report names an address or a person; dispatch reads the flag to the responding crew; the flag is reviewed annually and removed when it no longer reflects a risk; a privacy review with the municipal privacy officer confirms the basis for holding the information. Volunteers responding from home get the flag by pager or app text, never only by station radio.

Evidence. Dispatch agreement; flag register; annual review record; privacy review.

Requirement. Crews stage out of sight of the address for any call dispatched with a violence flag, a weapon, an assault, a domestic dispute, an overdose with agitation, a psychiatric crisis with a threat, or any call where the information is unclear and the officer judges the risk high, and do not approach until the police service declares the scene safe or the officer has a specific, communicated reason to proceed. A refusal to enter an unsafe scene is supported without question. (S1)

Minimum method. Pre-defined staging points for recurring addresses; a radio phrase for staging and for “scene safe”; the staging rule applies to volunteers in personal vehicles, who stage with the apparatus, not at the door. Full procedure in SWP - Violent Scene Staging.

Evidence. SWP in force; dispatch recordings sampled; staging card (toolkit T3) on every apparatus.

Requirement. Crews approach as a crew, identify two ways out before entering, keep the patient and bystanders from getting between the crew and the exit, keep hands and the room in view, and leave together on the exit word. Every member carries a radio with a working duress or emergency function on calls where this is possible, and every member knows how to use it. (S1)

Minimum method. Teach the approach in the recruit course and the annual refresher; test the duress button weekly with the radio check; the officer calls the exit word and nobody argues until the crew is outside.

Evidence. Training records; radio test log; exit word in the SWP.

Requirement. Every operational member completes a recognized de-escalation course covering crisis communication, trauma-informed and mental-health-crisis response, recognition of escalation, retreat, and what to do when a weapon is seen or suspected, with a refresher every two to three years. The program includes awareness training on post-reversal agitation after naloxone, on encampments, and on clandestine drug labs (which are a hazmat response, see Hazardous Materials, CBRN and Energy Hazards Program) (MLITSD, n.d., GN 6-15, 6-17, 6-49), and names the criteria for requesting police: any weapon, any assault, any threat, any patient who cannot be safely treated, and any officer’s judgment. (S1 for de-escalation and police criteria; S2 for the refresher cycle fully running)

Minimum method. Choose one course and refresh cycle (toolkit T5 outline); deliver with the medical first response recertification where possible; put the police criteria on the staging card.

Evidence. Course certificates; refresh dates; staging card.

Requirement. The department decides in writing, with the police service and the emergency health services provider, what role it takes in an active threat or hostile event: stage and treat in the cold zone only, or operate a rescue task force in the warm zone with police protection. A rescue task force role requires planning based on NFPA 3000 (NFPA 3000, 2024) (MLITSD, n.d., GN 6-37), joint training, ballistic protective equipment, a written hot, warm and cold zone language shared with police, and JOHSC consultation before adoption. Without that decision and those controls, the department’s role is cold zone only. (S2)

Minimum method. Joint planning meeting; written decision filed with the policy; joint exercise where the task force role is adopted.

Evidence. Decision record; MOU; exercise report.

Requirement. Every station controls public access to living and sleeping areas, has exterior lighting and a lockable public interface, and has a way to summon help (panic alarm, duress button or a direct line) from the public counter. Members who work alone (single-staffed stations, inspectors, public educators, members in a station at night) have a lone-worker check-in procedure and a means of calling for help. Volunteers who arrive alone at a scene in a personal vehicle stage until the apparatus arrives on any flagged call. (S1)

Minimum method. Station security review with Facilities and Station Safety Program using toolkit T2; lone-worker check-in by radio or phone at set intervals; the personal-vehicle rule in the SWP.

Evidence. Station reviews; lone-worker procedure; check-in log sampled.

Requirement. The department must have a written harassment policy, adopted in Policy - Workplace Violence and Harassment, that states every member’s right to a workplace free of harassment, the employer’s commitment and every member’s obligation, encourages reporting, sets out the procedures to recognize, prevent, respond to and report harassment, including a route outside the chain of command where the supervisor or the employer is the subject of the complaint, commits to investigating every complaint, informs the parties of the outcome, keeps information confidential except where disclosure is needed to investigate, take corrective action or comply with the law, prohibits reprisal, provides for corrective action, and preserves every other legal right including human rights complaints and grievances; the applicable harassment rules set the minimum elements (J27 Workplace Harassment). Harassment includes bullying and hazing, and a single significant incident can be harassment. The policy must be reviewed at least every three years, or sooner where the applicable rules set a shorter interval, and after any serious case (J27 Workplace Harassment). (S1)

Minimum method. Adopt the policy; name at least two reporting channels that do not run through the member’s officer ({{Human Resources}}, the municipal integrity or respectful workplace office, the union or association, an external investigator); publish them on the same notice board as the prevention statement; check the policy against toolkit T6 annually.

Evidence. Policy; published channels; T6 completed.

Requirement. Every complaint is acknowledged within five working days, assessed for interim measures (separation of parties, reassignment, protection from reprisal) within the same period, and investigated by a trained person with no stake in the outcome, with a written outcome to both parties within a target of 60 days. Investigations of conduct are run by {{Human Resources}} or an external investigator and are kept entirely separate from the learning process: nothing said in a learning team, after-action review or peer support session is used in a harassment investigation, and a harassment investigation never substitutes for a learning review of the conditions that allowed the behaviour. (S1)

Minimum method. Intake form; interim measures checklist; investigator roster (internal trained plus external); outcome letter template; corrective action logged in the Corrective Action Register with the organizational fixes (not the discipline) tracked there.

Evidence. Case log with dates; outcome letters (confidential); register entries.

Requirement. The department treats hazing, initiation rituals, gendered and sexual harassment, and persistent exclusion as safety hazards that produce psychological injury and attrition, not as tradition or banter; civility and respect and psychological protection are named factors of the national standard (CSA Z1003-13). The psychosocial hazard assessment in Psychological Health and Safety and Peer Support Program names them, the safety culture survey (05 Safety Culture Baseline) measures whether members believe a complaint is safe to make, and officers are trained to intervene early and to receive a complaint without defensiveness. (S1 for the policy and officer training; S2 for the survey and trend review)

Minimum method. Officer module in the supervisor competency set (01 Roles and Responsibilities section 7); civility and respect named in the station inspection conversation; anonymized complaint counts and themes reviewed at the JOHSC quarterly.

Evidence. Training records; survey results; JOHSC minutes.

Requirement. Every member must report every incident of violence, including verbal threats and threats made online or by phone, before the end of the shift or, for volunteers, within 24 hours, on Form - Violence Incident Report. The company officer completes the supervisor section. The department must document every report, investigate promptly, and tell the reporting member in writing what preventive action was taken (J26 Workplace Violence). Assaults are reported to the police (Criminal Code [CA], 1985, ss. 265 to 270); injuries are reported to the workers’ compensation board on the statutory clock (J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation). (S1)

Minimum method. Form on every apparatus and in the records system; HSO reviews every report within two working days; the learning triage group assigns the After the Call tier; the reply to the reporter is logged.

Evidence. Report register; reply dates; triage record.

Requirement. After any incident of violence the officer holds a short debrief with the crew within the shift, advises the affected member to consult a health professional (a step some violence regulations require: J26 Workplace Violence), and offers peer support and the employee and family assistance program. Modified duties are available for physical and psychological injury alike. The department assists with a workers’ compensation claim, including a claim under any presumptive provision for post-traumatic stress disorder (J32 Workers' Compensation and Firefighter Presumptions), and never discourages one. (S1)

Minimum method. Debrief questions on the form; referral card on every apparatus; the peer support team is told (with consent) the same day; return-to-work workflow under Medical, Fitness and Wellness Program.

Evidence. Form fields completed; referral records (aggregate); claim assistance log.

Requirement. The department may consider body-worn cameras only after a privacy impact assessment under the applicable municipal privacy and personal health information legislation (J10 Privacy and Health Information), a written retention and access policy, a decision on consent in private homes, consultation with the JOHSC and the bargaining agents on discipline and evidence use, and a costed plan. Cameras are not entered in the risk assessment as a prevention control unless the department holds evidence that they reduce assaults in comparable services. (S3 if adopted)

Minimum method. Record the decision either way in toolkit T7; revisit at the five-year reassessment.

Evidence. Decision record; PIA where adopted.

Requirement. The program keeps the risk assessment, prevention plan, statement, training records, incident reports, investigation files (confidential), debrief and referral records (aggregate), the dispatch flag register and the JOHSC consultation record, and evaluates itself annually through the team’s appraisal and the audit. (S1 records; S2 evaluation)

Minimum method. Section 9 table; quarterly indicator worksheet (toolkit T9); annual appraisal.

Evidence. Records on file; appraisal.

Two things with similar names run through this program and are kept distinct. Psychological health is the member’s own mental health, protected through the factors in the national standard (CSA Z1003-13) and the clinical pathways in Psychological Health and Safety and Peer Support Program. Psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999)DOI is an organizational condition: the shared belief in a crew that it is safe to speak up, ask, admit error and challenge, created by how officers behave, how meetings run and what happens to the last person who reported something. This program depends on the second more than any other, because its two hazards are both under-reported for the same reason: members believe that reporting a threat marks them as soft, and that reporting harassment marks them as a problem.

(a) Work-as-done. Before any staging, approach or reporting procedure is written or changed, the Medical First Response team runs a learning-team session with members who have been in the room: what a flagged call actually looks like when police are 20 minutes away and the caller says someone is not breathing; how crews really decide to go in; what the exit word is now, if there is one; how a volunteer arriving in a personal vehicle really behaves; what happens to a threat report after it is filed, and whether anyone has ever heard back; what members do about a colleague who crosses the line, and why they do not report it. The procedure is written from that description, which is what work-as-done means (Hollnagel, 2014). The harassment policy is reviewed the same way, with members who are least likely to be heard in the room, and with no officer who rates them present.

(b) Capacity and margins. The work goes right most days because crews read a room quickly, officers slow the approach down, members cover each other, and most people in crisis respond to calm. That capacity is eroded by short crews, pressure to clear calls, long police response times, fatigue, repeated exposure that dulls alarm, and a station culture where nobody says “I am not comfortable going in.” The program protects the margin with the staging rule, the exit word, the police criteria that take the decision off one tired officer, lone-worker rules, and a reporting system that treats a threat as information rather than weakness.

(c) Just culture. A crew that went in before police arrived has usually done so because the call sounded like a life at stake and the rule felt like abandonment. The response is to find out what made it make sense and to fix the conditions (dispatch information, police response, the rule’s wording), not to discipline the officer (Dekker, 2016). The learning firewall applies: what members say in learning teams, after-action reviews and debriefs is never used for discipline. Conduct concerns, including a harassment complaint, go to a separate process run by different people under section 5.11 and Policy - Workplace Violence and Harassment. The two processes do not share notes, interviewers or files.

(d) Psychological safety. A member speaks up at a scene by saying it plainly: “I am not comfortable, let’s stage” or “Exit word.” The officer’s reply is fixed: acknowledge, act, and ask what the member saw. No argument at the door, no comment in front of the crew, no record with a name. A member reports harassment through any channel they trust, and the first reply from whoever receives it is “thank you, you were right to tell me, here is what happens next.” Leaders show it is safe by reporting threats against themselves, by telling crews the aggregate numbers and what changed, by intervening early in station behaviour, and by never asking a member to withdraw a complaint.

(e) Learning link. A workplace violence injury is a Tier 2 Post-Incident Analysis trigger; a death or critical injury from violence is Tier 3 Independent Learning Review; a threat, a near miss at a scene, a crew that entered before police, or a harassment complaint’s organizational conditions is a Tier 1 After-Action Review (the conduct part goes to section 5.11). The AAR questions after any call where violence was present or possible: “What did we know before we arrived, and what did we not know?” “When did the room change, and who noticed first?” “What made it hard to stage, retreat or say the exit word?” “What would have let us get out sooner?” Method: Incident Investigation and Learning Program and, for the full tiers, Manual 02 - The Three Tiers and Event Triage.

• SWP - Violent Scene Staging

Procedures this program depends on but does not own: SWP - Infection Control and Post-Exposure (patient contact, needle-stick during a struggle); the naloxone and clandestine lab procedures of Hazardous Materials, CBRN and Energy Hazards Program; the station security elements of Facilities and Station Safety Program; the accountability procedures of Emergency Operations Safety Program.

Loop test. A firefighter at a volunteer station reports on Monday that a patient’s family member threatened the crew with a knife and that dispatch had no flag for the address. By Tuesday the HSO has read the report, the address is flagged, the police file number is on the form, and the member has been offered a debrief and the referral card. By Friday the report is in the register with the team lead as owner and the member has a written reply. Within the quarter, the learning team has asked why the earlier call at that address (there was one) was never reported, the reporting rule and the staging card have been reissued, a change notice has gone to every station, and the item is closed with evidence and reported in the quarterly update and to the JOHSC.

Audit category: Checklist - Workplace Violence and Harassment. The five questions an auditor asks first:

1. Show me the violence risk assessment. When was it done, who from the JOHSC has a copy, and what did it change?
2. Pull the last 10 flagged calls from dispatch. Show me where each crew staged, and where it did not, the officer’s reason.
3. Show me the last five violence reports. Where is the reply to each reporter, and what preventive action did it name?
4. Show me the harassment reporting channels on the station notice board. Ask three members, one of them a volunteer, which one they would use and whether they believe it would be taken seriously.
5. Show me the last harassment case’s clocks: acknowledged, interim measures, outcome. Then show me the organizational fix in the register, separate from the conduct outcome.

For an accredited or candidate department, the auditor’s answers to questions 1, 2, 3 and 5 are the evidence for the hazard reporting, risk reduction, investigation, emergency operations risk management and member assistance criteria of the self-assessment manual (CPSE, 2019, criteria 11A.2, 11A.3, 11A.7, 11A.8, 11B.4); the training records in section 6 answer the safety training criterion (CPSE, 2019, criterion CC 11A.5).

Assaults on responders follow a recognizable pattern, and the fire-service guidance on workplace violence is written against the same elements (MLITSD, n.d., GN 5-3). Crews enter before police arrive because the dispatch information was thin or the caller said someone was dying; the first member through the door is alone, often a volunteer in a personal vehicle; the room changes when a patient is reversed with naloxone, restrained, or told something they do not want to hear; the crew has no exit word, so one member retreats while another is still arguing; the threat is not reported because nothing happened “this time”, so the next crew at that address gets no flag. Verbal threats are the most under-reported event in this program’s area, and an unreported threat is the information the next crew needed.

Inside the department, the pattern is quieter and does as much damage. Hazing dressed as tradition, gendered and sexual harassment treated as banter, and persistent exclusion of the member who does not fit drive psychological injury, sick leave and resignation, and they persist because the only reporting route runs through the officer who tolerates them. The national standard names civility and respect and psychological protection as conditions of a psychologically healthy workplace for this reason (CSA Z1003-13).

This program answers both patterns with the staging rule, the flag system, the exit word, the police criteria, the lone-response rule, the threat reporting rule with a reply to the reporter, reporting channels outside the chain of command, officer training to intervene early, and a culture survey that measures whether members believe reporting is safe.

Stage 1 (Foundation) minimum. Policy and prevention statement adopted and posted; violence risk assessment T1 and T2 completed with the JOHSC; staging SWP and card in force; dispatch flag agreement in writing; duress button tested weekly; de-escalation course delivered to every operational member within 18 months (scheduled in the first year); harassment policy with the prescribed elements adopted and two reporting channels outside the chain published; violence incident form on every apparatus; every report reviewed and answered; station public access reviewed and the worst gaps logged in the register.

Cost (people). Program manager and team lead about half a day a month; HSO about two hours a week for report review and dispatch liaison in a department of 200 to 400 members; officer time for the debrief after each incident; {{Human Resources}} intake and investigation time per case (budget for an external investigator at two to four cases a year in a large department).

Cost (money, order of magnitude; confirm locally). De-escalation course licence or instructor training and delivery time for every operational member; refresher every two to three years; station access control, lighting and panic alarm retrofits where missing (the largest Stage 1 cost in an older station stock); radio duress function where the fleet lacks it; external investigator fees; survey administration under 05 Safety Culture Baseline. Ballistic equipment only if the rescue task force role is adopted, and then as a separate business case.

This chapter relies on the following legal requirements, which differ by province and territory. Check your jurisdiction’s section on each topic page before adopting it.

Complete one row per call type with the team, the JOHSC consultant and dispatch. Likelihood and severity use the department’s risk matrix from 03 Hazard Profile and Risk Register Method. “History” means incidents at this department in the last five years and at similar services in the region.

Station security review items for each station: controlled door between public and living areas; door hardware and locks working; exterior and parking lighting; sight lines from the public counter; panic alarm or duress line and its test record; visitor sign-in; after-hours access; camera coverage of entrances (if any, with the privacy notice).

Print on a card for every apparatus and personal vehicle responder. Full procedure in SWP - Violent Scene Staging.

Stage when dispatched with any of: violence flag or caution note; weapon; assault; domestic dispute; psychiatric crisis with a threat; overdose with agitation; unknown safety information that the officer judges high risk; caller or bystander hostile on the phone.

Staging: out of sight and sound of the address; engine off or lights off; crew stays with the apparatus; personal vehicle responders stage with the apparatus, never at the door; radio “{{Staging phrase}}” with the location.

Proceed only when: police on scene declare “{{Scene safe phrase}}”, or the officer has a specific, communicated reason and tells dispatch.

Approach: as a crew; identify two exits; patient and bystanders never between the crew and the exit; hands and room in view; keep the radio on your body.

Exit word: “{{Exit word}}”. Anyone can say it. Everyone leaves. No argument until outside.

Request police for: any weapon; any assault; any threat; a patient who cannot be treated safely; your own judgment.

After: report every incident including threats before end of shift; debrief with the officer; referral card.

{{Department}} does not accept violence, threats or harassment against its members, from anyone. Every member has the right to be safe at every call, in every station and in every vehicle. Every threat, assault and act of harassment is reported, investigated and answered, and the member who reports it is told what changed. Members who stage, retreat or decline to enter an unsafe scene are supported without question. Members who are hurt or threatened are debriefed, supported and helped. Report to your officer, to {{Health and Safety Officer}}, to {{Human Resources}}, to the {{JOHSC}}, or to {{External reporting channel}}. Signed: Fire Chief, {{Effective date}}

Refresher every two to three years: modules 2, 4, 6 and 7, half a day.

Tick each row when the adopted policy contains it and record where. The auditor uses Checklist - Workplace Violence and Harassment.

Completed by the team lead inside 15 days of quarter end; goes to the program manager, the senior leadership team and the JOHSC.

The table in section 11 is the program’s accountability loop. Copy it into the team’s terms of reference (06 Program Improvement Teams section 12) with the department’s titles from the mapping table in 01 Roles and Responsibilities section 6. The defaults, in one line each:

• Owner: program manager, Medical First Response team (line district chief), for scene safety and station security; the fire chief for the harassment policy with {{Human Resources}} as partner.
• Doer: members, company officers, dispatch, HSO, {{Human Resources}} and investigators, peer support, training division.
• Verifier: company officer weekly and monthly; HSO every report and a quarterly sample; JOHSC quarterly data and station inspections; {{Human Resources}} case clocks; internal audit annually; independent review every three years.
• Feedback: quarterly update inside 15 days; written reply to every reporter inside 10 working days; aggregate themes to stations twice a year; change notices with every change.
• Closure: Corrective Action Register inside five working days with a P1 to P4 priority; extension and escalation as the priority scale sets; evidence and verifier sign-off to close; monthly to the JOHSC, annually to the fire chief.

The Stage 1 minimum and the cost note are in section 14. For budgeting, transfer to the team’s five-year worksheet: de-escalation course and refreshers; station access control, lighting and alarm retrofits; radio duress capability; external investigator fees; survey administration; ballistic equipment only if the rescue task force role is adopted.

Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development [MLITSD]. (n.d.). Firefighter guidance notes (Section 21 Advisory Committee; individual notes revised to 2026). https://www.ontario.ca/document/firefighter-guidance-notes