Members of Secaucus’s volunteer Fire Department were required to join in on the town’s sensitivity training program required for all full-time employees, starting this year.
“The town has offered sensitivity training for seven years,” said Mayor Dennis Elwell. “This time we’re including the firefighters. In the past it was full-time personnel.”
Town Administrator Anthony Iacono said that the fire chief’s decision to include the firemen was not in response to an incident last month in which a gay couple living near a firehouse accused members of the department of harassing them based on their sexual orientation.
“The mayor and council are going to take some training too,” said Elwell. “If we’re going to make volunteers do something, we’re going to do it too.”
The town’s program
The sensitivity training program is run by Dr. Tracy Waldman of Intervention Strategies International, based in Secaucus. Dr. Waldman also offers the town’s Employee Assistance Program, a counseling program.
The sensitivity program consists of single 90-minute sessions that focus primarily on sexual harassment. In addition to reviewing laws, policies and regulations, the class uses fictional scenarios to encourage empathy for anyone possibly affected by a hostile work environment.
“Case scenarios provide a format that really provides an opportunity to further discussion and provide examples they can relate to,” said Waldman, a clinical psychologist. “I think it’s all about awareness, increasing people’s awareness. Most people who are harassing other people in the workplace are not doing so intentionally. I think most people are unaware their behavior is offensive.”
Waldman said she did not change the format of the class after the alleged harassment of the gay men. “There was no need to change in light of that,” Waldman said. “I didn’t need to change what I do, but I’ve emphasized to the people who work with the public that it’s not only their behavior to each other that is important, but to the public, and in the eyes of the public.”
Waldman said that the participants have been enthusiastic. She has been presenting a total of 10 classes which end today (Sunday, June 27).
“When people come in, I think they expect to be bored,” she said. “But the scenarios encourage everyone to participate, and everyone has been actively participating and engaged.”
Training for police officers
Members of the Police Department get training in the Police Academy for domestic violence and how to deal with a diverse public.
According to Police Chief Corcoran, police officers attend periodic classes where they learn updated laws, rules, and procedures.
“We have domestic violence training periodically,” said Corcoran. “and we try to hire people in the first place who have good people skills.”
Anthony Parenti is the Director of the John Stamler Police Academy in Scotch Plains, from which the latest batch of Secaucus recruits graduated. At the academy, he said, recruits are taught how to deal with people from various cultures.
“With many Asians, for example, you have to take your shoes off to enter their house or you’re insulting them right off the bat,” said Parenti. “If I gave a thumbs-up to some Hispanics, it’s like the middle finger. Not all Hispanics, but I wouldn’t give the thumbs-up because it could be insulting.”
Parenti said that where they can’t be specific, cadets are trained to pay attention to the people they are dealing with and look for non-verbal cues if they don’t speak the language.
“You just deal directly with the people,” Parenti said. “If you don’t know the culture, you try to deal with it. They’ll give you signs. If they point to your feet like they want you to take off your shoes, you take them off. If they can’t communicate verbally, and they try to give you non-verbal communication, that’s what [cadets] are trained to do.”
In addition to cultures, Parenti said that issues of sexual orientation have been in the curriculum since he started in 1998.
“They go through the gamut of cultural diversity,” said Parenti.
The Police Academy also uses psychiatric screens to determine cadets’ attitudes towards others.
“If a person has a tendency to disregard the safety of someone else or a racist attitude, it usually comes out,” said Parenti. “We had one guy fail recently. We asked if he had any bias, and he said no, but after being evaluated by the psychiatrist, they found out that he did, so we didn’t accept him because he lied about it.”
So far, the Secaucus Fire Department is only required to undergo the training for sexual harassment as required by the rest of the town members. There is no new training for dealing with people of different sexual orientations. Mayor Elwell said that it could be difficult to require volunteers to complete specific trainings. Fire Chief Frank Walters did not return several calls for this article.