Responsive Efforts To Address Integral
Needs in Staffing
Objective
Project 40's
goal, as charged by the Executive Council is to develop a standard
to be used by communications centers for number of staff needed
to perform to an expected level of service and scheduling of those
staff in the most efficient manner.
Background
This project was formed to
address the staffing crisis throughout our nation's communications
centers after the Executive Council Meeting in Salt Lake City in
August 2001. Establishing this issue as a project came by recommendation
from a task force headed by Steve Souder of APCO's Virginia Chapter.
The APCO Communications
Center Task Force found that personnel recruitment and retention
are key to the staffing of our nation's 9-1-1/Public Safety Communications
Centers (PSCC). While recruitment and retention are not the only
factors, they are probably the most prevalent cause for the crisis.
With that known, the APCO Communications Center Task Force developed
a "Best Practices" document, which is designed to provide jurisdictions
and agencies guidance and assistance in resolving the crisis in
recruitment and retention of 9-1-1/PSCC personnel.
Project RETAINS Tool Kit
The APCO Project RETAINS “tool kit” is the product of the most extensive in depth research ever conducted of the issues impacting the recruitment, hiring, processing, training and retention of personnel in 9-1-1 public safety communications centers. These 9-1-1 call takers and law enforcement, fire-rescue and emergency medical service dispatchers and their supervisors are the nations “1st of the First Responders” and among the most unsung of the nations unsung public safety heroes.
Everyday, 24 hours a day across America personnel, in public safety communications centers, staffed with as few as two and as many as more then a hundred, stand at the ready to assist citizens in their time of emergency. More then 300,000 times a day citizens call 9-1-1 and are dealt with by communications center personnel, which are ordinary people….. that do extraordinary things; before a police officer, fire fighter or emergency medical technician arrives at the scene of the emergency.
This often life saving work is wonderfully rewarding, but carries with it the awesome responsibility of making split second decisions in a time critical, error free environment, while being empathic to citizens that are often in highly emotional, life threatening and distraught situations.
This profession has historically been one that experiences high personnel turnover rates and frequent vacancies.
The tools in the toolbox are designed to assist communications center managers, human resource and management and budget department personnel, police chiefs, sheriffs, fire chiefs and elected officials, in addressing the challenges associated with hiring and retaining qualified personnel for this vitally important position, that is the person behind the number 9-1-1.
On behalf of the APCO Project RETAINS Team and the staff of the University of Denver/Denver Research Institute, it has been our privilege and honor to address this issue. We did so with a high sense of commitment to our 9-1-1 public safety communications colleagues,the agencies and jurisdictions in which they work and citizens they serve.
|
