As I write this article, I happen to be watching the 2022 movie about Whitney Houston and her rise to stardom. Whitney is still hailed as the “greatest voice of her generation” to this day because she managed to capture a vocal brilliance and a vocal range that wasn’t even fathomable for many. She did something new, something completely against the grain for her time, musically speaking, and through the iconic power of her voice she completely changed the landscape of pop music. Sometimes that’s all it takes; a new voice to shake up a whole industry!
“What do you think of when you see or hear the term, “Next Generation 911?”
Let me ask you a question, “What do you think of when you see or hear the term, “Next Generation 911?”
I imagine that your head is filled with images of 911 centers receiving video clips or still images of emergencies in real time, or a passerby pointing their iPhone in the direction of a motor vehicle accident in response to the question of, “Tell me exactly what is happening.” Or even just the thought of a remote workforce comprised of individuals that can dispatch and process 911 calls entirely from the comfort of their home offices. Yes, these initiatives are all examples of services and solutions engineered in the name of Next Generation 911 (NG911).
However, NG911 isn’t just about the technology being created to revamp our work and make 911 call processing and dispatching more efficient. It’s about adapting versatile solutions towards creating a faster, more effective, and more reliable system. Some of those solutions extend far beyond CAD or mapping technologies. When I think of NG911, I think of the other, less talked about “next generation,” referring to the generation of telecommunicators who innovated the industry (and the whole system of 911) in equally pertinent ways just by asking questions. A generation who didn’t hesitate to fix a system that wasn’t particularly broken (but wasn’t altogether working either) or look into doing things differently, even though they had been done that way since virtually time immemorial.
It might seem crazy to think about this now, but once upon a time it wasn’t very acceptable in the world of public safety to admit that a call affected you. In fact, it wasn’t acceptable to ask for help or peer support. Just like it wasn’t even a consideration long ago that “sick days” could be utilized as “mental health days” because sometimes we just need to give our mind a break from the insanity and difficult calls for service that is our everyday norm in this job. As emergency telecommunicators, we used to be instructed to just “leave work at the door” when we clocked out and just “don’t think about the calls.”
“Resiliency was once touted as this invisible plate of steel that we wore on our heart to keep from letting the aching in.”
Resiliency was once touted as this invisible plate of steel that we wore on our heart to keep from letting the aching in.
There was no taking breaks off the floor…
…or talking it out emotionally to a peer about a call that we just can’t shake…
…or admitting that we weren’t sleeping well and seeking tips and advice to improve our mental state…
… because having a discombobulated sleep schedule is truly not a badge of honor.
But times have changed, with new, young voices in our industry effectively calling for the culture to change as well. Now, resiliency is seen as a place of holistic wellness and stability that we can achieve through having the support of our own agency and peers as well as through resources designed to build better awareness of our stressors and ways to understand and manage our feelings.
To be completely fair to the newer generations of emergency telecommunicators that help make up this industry, their criticisms and commentary have shaped so many positive changes, and they continue to influence a sector once dominated by very outdated, inflexible perspectives.
It was newer generations of headset warriors that led the charge in making it “okay” to admit when you weren’t okay. They brought attention to issues like post-traumatic stress, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. They called for dispatch to be involved in critical incident stress debriefings following their involvement in situations such as mass casualty incidents, officer-involved shootings, line-of-duty deaths, etc. They dared to counter those aging viewpoints like “leave work at the door” and facilitate conversations around helping those in our profession to have those hard, necessary talks with family members and non-public safety friends on how they can best support them when they just can’t separate their work from their personal lives.
If not for the newer generations asking the sort of questions that no one was asking before and beginning to expect that kind of support from their agency, there never would have been a push towards addressing the emotional side to what we do and resiliency training.
Who would have thought that concepts like “team building exercises” or “fun group activities” or “morale committees” would be so important to PSAPs in this day and age? Well, here we are in 2024 and it is widely understood and respected that salary, insurance benefits, and minimum job security are not the all-important factors for recruitment and retention like they were an era ago. People are looking for job satisfaction and emotional fulfillment that comes with a work environment where they can actually like what they do and where they do it at.
Current and newer generations want to work for organizations that value them as a person. They want to stay at organizations where their thoughts, needs, abilities, professional development, and general wellbeing matter to their immediate supervisors and higher ups. It took a few voices to raise the right questions about why public safety shouldn’t revolve around a positive and fun work culture and why we couldn’t encourage wholesome outlets for unwinding after work or building morale through some out-of-the-box creativity.
“…The same newer generations of 911 telecommunicators, who are more interconnected with technology than ever before, are the same ones calling for more interpersonal, people-oriented, and human-centric approaches…”
To think, in a world where the technological landscape is ever evolving, the same newer generations of 911 telecommunicators, who are more interconnected with technology than ever before, are the same ones calling for more interpersonal, people-oriented, and human-centric approaches to addressing issues like retention.
And what about some of the new technology that has taken flight just within the past few years? Eight years ago, when I first donned the headset, we were at the mercy of very stagnant concepts in existing technology to locate our callers as accurately as we could. Unfortunately, cell phones weren’t exactly helping the cause and callers were still, if not more, confounded as ever by the question of, “Okay, where exactly are you right now?”
Flash forward to now though; we have the cutting-edge technology to determine more precise locations of emergencies for field responders and can even use the caller’s cell phone camera to access a first-hand view of an emergency situation in order to provide the best, most detailed information for responders prior to them even arriving on scene. This all sounds so innovative, right? Correct! Truth be told, a big part of why any of this is now a reality is because years ago dispatchers started asking the tough questions like, “Why is it so hard to know where my caller is at,” and “How can this be better?” And as new solutions were brought to the technological forefront of public safety, they were the first to learn about them, embrace them, advocate for their implementation, and lobby for funding of these solutions.
So, what does the future of 911 hold in store as we continue to recruit and attract millennials and Gen Z who are looking for that balance between wanting to find their next career and wanting to have an overall quality of life? If we have learned anything from the changes we have seen in the past decade, it’s that as we continue to ask questions and seek ways to improve our PSAPs and our work cultures, we will continue to expand our horizons.
The next generations will continue to question why we do what we do and pose new counterarguments to make what we do better. The next generations will continue to not simply accept “NO” for an answer and will keep pushing to exceed the limitations that past generations wouldn’t have dared to defy.
I imagine the future of 911 will mean a system that just works efficiently and conveniently for both our and our citizens’ benefit. A system where PSAPs are more equipped and prepared than ever before for whatever calls for service they are confronted with. A culture where soft skills like empathy, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence are given just as much weight as the hard technical skills because behind all of the new technology this is an increasingly human job. Yes. A very bright future indeed.
Created by Samantha Hawkins
The Learning Center is pleased to give Samantha a platform to share her experiences.
Samantha Hawkins, a certified PSAP Professional and Quality Assurance Evaluator, has been a key figure in public safety communications since 2015. She is highly experienced in training others, reflecting her commitment to sharing her expertise.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article and series are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities she represents.
