Victoria Metz is a fire officer in the London Fire brigade (LFB) with 31 years service. She joined in 1988 as an 18 year old young woman when there were only 30 other operational women firefighters throughout Great Britain (out of 37500 men)
She has worked her way up through the ranks, serving at various fire stations in and around East London and now works in the health and safety department in head quarters as a Group Commander (5 ranks above a firefighter). Her main role up until recently was investigating serious accidents which could potentially cause significant injury or death to fire fighters.
More recently Victoria has been leading the charge at the Brigade to get practical support in place to help women dealing with menopausal symptoms. She is motivated by helping people to better understand how Menopause can impact on personal wellbeing. Her own experience of the menopause over the past three years has inspired her to campaign to raise awareness in the fire service, availability of natural fibre clothing for unformed staff, organise a range of events including “world menopause day” event where over 150 people attended and more recently has founded the Menopause action (MAG) support group to help women struggling with their symptoms or to give advise to managers/colleagues on how to support those women.
Victoria is retiring from the fire service in April 2020 so is spending most of her time giving presentations to various departments throughout LFB to encourage an open conversation and a better understanding of the effects that menopause can have, so that no one has to feel that they aren’t being supported at work. She is currently running “menopause champions” awareness sessions to staff, both men and women, so that the support continues beyond her retirement in April.