Arizona APCO-NENA Law Enforcement Committee

Meeting Minutes

November 12, 2009

Meeting called to order by Tonia Rogers, Law Enforcement Committee Chair

Introduction of attendees – Kimberly Harris, Mark Hill, Allyna Bay, Christine Pantoja-Young

Discussion:

Training – The committee talked about statewide standardization of training, having the committee look at minimum training requirements guideline for both call takers and dispatchers with unified training to build better systems and alliances among agencies is needed throughout the state.  The committee agreed that training is a huge need statewide and the cost of training is now prohibitive to many agencies.  The committee talked about how some agencies are doing in house training that can be presented on a regional basis or that have instructors that might be used regionally and/or statewide. 

The training should be divided into two categories; new employee training to learn new things and develop job skills, to include classes like customer service and basic call taking and existing employee training to include more in-depth classes on Arizona laws, differences between civil and criminal and refresher classes like stress management and wellness for shift work.  Some other classes talked about were active shooter, hostage negotiation, suicidal caller, missing children and leadership in the 911 center, along with technical items of interest like NextGen911 and other new technology.

Retention – The committee talked about what can be done to improve staff retention and how to ensure the new hires not only make it through training but stay on the job for at least a year.  Agencies are still losing new hires out of training to other agencies and yet have difficulty recruiting people that want to be law enforcement call takers and dispatchers.  The committee talked about having APCO-NENA sponsor some information pamphlets about the job and the industry that can be handed out at colleges and job fairs to get people interested and informed.  Another problem for the industry is the lack of marketing and awareness of the 911 call taking and dispatching fields.  Especially with the new technology, more can be done to attract younger people that are more technically inclined to keep up with the rapid changes in the industry; possibly distributing the pamphlets discussed earlier to technical colleges, as well as having group members speak at local high schools, colleges and job fairs. 

Another aspect of retention is negativity, which can be cyclical and dependent on the economy as calls increase, but staffing, training, pay, etc. decreases or stays the same.  The committee talked about how to recognize employees that do a good job and how communication centers can share ideas about how they recognize their employees.

Communication - The committee talked about setting up a communication forum, like a discussion board, that could be used for Arizona communication centers to share ideas.  One that has different tiers and can be used to ask questions, get information and network.  The committee will think about the forum idea and bring back ideas and structures for the next meeting.

The next meeting via teleconference is scheduled for Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 9:00 am.

Meeting ended at 0955 hours.