By Mark Zaretsky
New Haven Register
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — For Veronica Jofre and her brother, Enzo, who grew up in a home on Howard Avenue in the city’s Hill section where Spanish was the first language, one key motivation to become first responders was something quite personal.
If anything ever happened to their mostly Spanish-speaking mother or their entirely Spanish-speaking father, the siblings would want whoever responded — whether a police officer, firefighter, emergency dispatcher or emergency medical technician — to speak their parents’ language and understand their concerns.
“I want to be that person for someone else’s mom,” said Veronica Jofre, 27.
That’s not the only reason the siblings went through American Medical Response’s 10-week “Earn While You Learn” program to become EMTs. The top reason was, “We want to help people out,” said Veronica Jofre, who was born in Mendoza, Argentina, and raised for the most part in New Haven. She now lives in Hamden.
Hiring Spanish-speaking EMTs “is good for the company” and “good for the crew,” said Enzo Jofre, 24, of Meriden, who spent the past few weeks shadowing certified American Medical Response EMTs and paramedics and was one of 19 recent graduates from the AMR program.
The program, which began with 32 candidates in this round, is one way that AMR attracts a diverse group of employees.
The 19 graduates last week at New Haven’s newly-renamed Michael E. Grant Regional Fire Training School included 14 people of color and 10 women, according to AMR. All now will become full-time AMR staff members.
“This is truly an amazing program” and “it has certainly been successful” in bringing diverse employees in at AMR, said Rick Fontana, the city’s director of emergency operations. “These are future lifesavers,” he said. “They will be saving lives.”
Having first responders who speak languages other than English is “extremely important,” said Police Chief Karl Jacobson.
The New Haven Police Department was unable to provide an exact count of how many Spanish-speaking officers it has, but Capt. Rose Dell said that 23 percent of its officers are Latino. Not all of those officers speak Spanish, however, she said.
The Police Department is budgeted for 410 officers and currently has 337 positions filled, Dell said. Besides English and Spanish, there are officers who speak at least 11 other languages, including French, Korean, Laotian, Punjabi, Hindi, Vietnamese, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Creole and Portuguese, she said.
“The New Haven Police Department is committed to recruiting diverse applicants to ensure that the police force reflects the community it serves,” Dell said. “We recruit through various social media platforms, attending job fairs and community events, and hosting weekly physical fitness training sessions.”
Fire Chief John Alston told the AMR graduates, “You are joining a noble profession,” and said that firefighters “work hand-to-hand with AMR.”
He jokingly told the newly-minted EMTs that “now that you’ve got that EMT thing out of the way,” they should all consider becoming firefighters.
“I’m hiring firefighters later this year,” he said. "... Come see me!”
Alston said later of the AMR program that “a program like this is incredible.”
The Fire Department doesn’t have a specific program to attract and recruit Spanish-speaking firefighters but it does achieve diversity by trying hard to recruit New Haven residents, giving an extra 10 points for residency.
“We don’t recruit bilingual or multi-lingual speakers,” but by drawing candidates from the city, which is more diverse than many of the surrounding towns, “I’m already getting the benefit of that,” Alston said.
On the last hiring list, 82 of the 99 applicants were from New Haven, he said.
New Haven currently has 337 active firefighters and is budgeted for 362, Alston said.
If a situation comes up involving someone that firefighters aren’t able to communicate with, “most times we reach out to PD” and “they find us a translator,” Alston said.
City Director of Public Safety Communications Joseph Vitale said that of his 47 dispatchers and supervisors, seven are bilingual speakers fluent in Spanish. It has no call-takers who speak other languages. New Haven has the second-busiest 911 call center in the state behind Hartford, answering 131,000 calls last year to Hartford’s 144,000, he said.
If a Spanish-speaking call-taker is not available, or if someone calls in who needs to communicate in another language, the center has access through the state to translators through Language Line, a contracted service available to all Connecticut 911 call centers. It immediately can patch in a translator who can speak a number of different languages, Vitale said.
The Jofres didn’t plan on going through the AMR program at the same time; they each applied separately. After learning each other had applied, they each also waited before telling the other of their acceptance, just in case their sibling wasn’t chosen.
But ultimately, “the course brought us together, in and out of school,” said Enzo Jofre. Having a sibling in the program has been an advantage, he said.
“I was going to give up at one point,” said Enzo, but “I didn’t,” in part because he didn’t want to bring down or disappoint his sister.
Each of the Jofres brings different strengths and weaknesses to the job, they said.
“He knows where he’s strong. I know where I’m strong,” said Veronica Jofre. Her brother is particularly strong on medical procedures and also more outgoing, while she is strong on trauma procedures, she said.
Now that they’ve each made it through the program, their older sister, Valeria, who lives in Meriden, wants to do it, as well, she said.
The AMR “Earn While You Learn” program began a few years ago in Buffalo and just graduated its fourth annual class in New Haven, having graduated nearly 65 EMTs locally, said Erin Conroy, an AMR paramedic field supervisor who spoke at the graduation.
“One of the things we are most proud of is the increase in diversity,” Conroy said.
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