APCO committed to helping find solutions to current staffing challenges faced by emergency communications centers (ECCs) by bringing together public safety professionals, state and local government leaders, and private industry at the 9-1-1 Staffing Crisis Summit in May. The more than 260 participants at the Summit were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about our efforts to address staffing issues and encouraged APCO to continue to support ECCs by seeking innovative ideas and solutions to this critical issue.
In furtherance of APCO’s leadership on this important issue, I am happy to announce the creation of the ECC Staffing Taskforce to study and make recommendations on effective recruiting, hiring, training and retention of public safety telecommunicators in both current ECCs and in the Next Generation 9-1-1 environment.
Over the next 18-24 months, the taskforce will examine and implement ideas and lessons learned from the Staffing Crisis Summit and expand on the work and recommendations made in the APCO Project 43 report on Broadband Implications for the PSAP published in 2017 and APCO’s Definitive Guide to Next Generation 9-1-1 published last year. Additionally, the taskforce will study the impact of existing, evolving and emerging challenges to building and maintaining an effective, sustainable, professional workforce in the ECC and make recommendations to help ECC leaders anticipate and overcome those challenges. Finally, honoring the experience and dedication of current communications professionals, the taskforce will identify ways today’s public safety telecommunicators can develop the skills and aptitude they need to be successful in the next generation ECC, helping them become more professionally resilient.
Are you an innovative thinker who is interested in being part of the solution? We are accepting applications for volunteers now through July 27. Participation in the task force is open to members in any membership category. Volunteer today!
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Today is the deadline for the early bird registration rate and to book your housing for APCO 2023 and guarantee the best rates and availability!
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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) published a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory this week to provide guidance to critical infrastructure on enhancing the monitoring of Microsoft Exchange Online environments. ECCs can enhance their cyber posture and position themselves to detect similar malicious activity by implementing logging recommendations in this advisory. The specific logging recommendations in this advisory are:
- Enable Purview Audit (Premium) logging
- Ensure logs are searchable by operators
- Enable Microsoft 365 Unified Audit Logging (UAL)
- If using a cloud solution, understand your ECC's cloud baseline.
ECCs that identify suspicious, anomalous activity should contact Microsoft to proceed with mitigation actions due to the cloud-based infrastructure affected and report to CISA and the FBI.
Read more
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Today, APCO launched a redesigned PSC eNews website in a new location: https://www.apcointl.org/psc. With a refreshed look and layout, the most current news is easier to scan and navigate on the home page and category landing pages. We reduced the number of categories to those most relevant to emergency communications professionals and also archived posts added before January 1, 2020, so visitors can be sure they are getting timely information. Finally, we integrated this with our apcointl.org website to combine resources in one location.
Note that direct links to articles on the old site will work while we make the transition. In the meantime, we hope you will take a moment to browse the new site and take advantage of these improvements.
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APCO has filed two American National Standard Institute (ANSI) Project Initiation (PINS) for the APCO ANS Core Competencies and Minimum Training Standards for Public Safety Communications Training Coordinator and the APCO ANS Core Competencies and Minimum Training Standards for Public Safety Communications Training Officer (CTO). APCO is seeking volunteers to establish a working group of diverse stakeholders to contribute to the revision and redesignation of both standards. Join one of the working groups by August 14.
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The recently updated Fire Service Communications, 3rd Edition, course provides advanced fire communications training to public safety telecommunicators. This course covers the terms, techniques and technologies required for fire service call taking and dispatch excellence. Newly added topics include the impact of NG9-1-1 on the telecommunicator role, electric vehicle fires, civil unrest and an expanded section on hazmat incidents. The course is offered in the APCO Virtual Classroom on July 24-27 and is worth 32 CDEs.
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This study will explore how public safety telecommunicators' work may influence and impact them professionally and emotionally. This short 5- to 10-minute survey will ask questions about your professional experience, emotional experiences and some brief demographic information. This is completely confidential, and no identifying information will be collected. This study will bring attention to telecommunicators and add to growing research acknowledging the impact of telecommunicator work and their vital part in emergency response. APCO is sharing this on behalf of a student from Regent University.
Take the survey
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CIProud.com
Telecommunicators Nicholas Newcomb, Sarah Wolf and Jayce Brame were recognized for actions taken in two separate choking calls.
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WTAJ
The county is encouraging anyone to apply who wants to make a difference.
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95.5 WSB
Response times are improved with more accurate, complete information and callers can choose to give video access to public safety telecommunicators.
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