SWIFS Supporting Women Into the Fire Service
SWIFS is a positive action program, designed to help women achieve their potential, as well as other minority backgrounds. This could include, males with disabilities, people of colour, various religious backgrounds and more.
SWIFS runs off the values of inspire, educate, empower and advocate.
SWIFS has many different functions, whether it be raising awareness of equality, diversity and inclusion, inspiring the next generation of fire staff, or whether it be utilized as a mentoring programme for potential candidates from minority backgrounds. SWIFS' functionality is endless and so is its mission. The project was born out of my own experiences in the fire and rescue sector, whilst I am aware not everyone has the same experiences or opinions, it is true that there is a large disparity between our nuclear candidates and our minority candidates.
SWIFS is and has been changing this one step at a time. The project has written in UK Fire Magazine twice this year already and has partnered with AFOA - Airport Fire Officers Association as well as media partnering for the 2026 Fire Safety Event.
The presentation and classroom based learning I would like to bring as part of WIF and FDIC is this; the ability to teach how equality, diversity and inclusion can benefit a workforce, how when it isn't present a workforce and the people it aims to help suffer. As well as the potential to run sessions for candidates from minority backgrounds interested in joining the fire and rescue service, and showing them the huge list of different careers they could have. SWIFS prides itself on showcasing both operational and non-opetational roles to candidates.
