PoliceLink

As everyone is aware of, 911 Telecommunicators have been hot topics in the media lately.  There have been several mistakes made that have caused alot of press time.  Some of them have made me mad personally as a Telecommunicator and trainer because they were blatantly wrong, and some make me furious because no one except people in this profession have a concept of how stressful and difficult our jobs can be.  Yes, we are human and make mistakes just like everyone else. 

Because of this, standard dispatcher certification has been discussed in several states.  Here in Tennessee, it has fallen to the TECB (TN Emergency Communications Board) to decide if they will make it mandatory to have dispatcher certification and what type. 

How does everyone feel about a standard dispatcher certification?

Dispatcher certification here in Florida is "voluntary" and you have to pay for it yourself. I feel that certification can only enhance the training program but I don't necessarily believe it would make anyone a "better" dispatcher.

Everyone in Iowa has to go to the Telecommunicator 40 hour schooling.  I think certification is very important, you learn stuff there that you can't learn anywhere else, i learned tips on how to deal with a domestic which helped alot.

pwidmayer says ...

APCO and NENA the biggest name in Telecommunications certifications should be the standard. I work for  a single entity dispatch center, all of our dispatchers are APCO Certified. APCO is an International Certification and I highly recommend it to everyone. There are many many training companies out there and I've been through a couple. Me and my Chief Dispatcher are certified instructors and can certify other dispatchers that we train with APCO. Its really a great thing to look into. If the fire service can have minimal standards and certifications, the 911 Communications should also. It can only make your organization better.

I totally agree with you.  I am also APCO certified and went on to take the instructor's course so I could certify the rest of the staff (cost effective as well as a great course).  We attended the open meeting with our state board and suggested they go with the APCO as well.  But they are also tossing around some other ideas.  So far, everyone we have spoken with seems to be in agreement that training is essential to our profession.  We already send our telecommunicators to the 40 hr state requirement, plus our own 8-10 week in-house training and any affordable classes we can find.  I believe the biggest concerns so far is how to pay for additional training.  We are such a small center that we incur major overtime costs as well as the training cost. We are hoping the state helps fund it. 

We have to be certified throught the state Criminal Justice Academy within 1 year of employment.  That is the only state mandated requirement.  Our department also uses APCO training to get our dispatchers trained.  We have three certified instructors here, including myself, and take turns doing classes when needed.  APCO has various certification classes, Public Safety Telecommunicator 1, Fire Communications, Emergency Medical Dispatch are the main ones that we do here during training.  I agree with someone else who talked about APCO, they are very good classes for the most part and they help the new people to understand some aspects of the job and how things work between dispatchers and the responders on the road.  I totally agree it should be a requirement that everyone go through some structured training such as the APCO classes.

Velcro911 says ...

How does everyone feel about a standard dispatcher certification?

I like the idea as long as we are all on the same page.  I don't think that 50 states should come up with 50 different "standard" certifications.  Which, unfortunately, is already where we are headed.  Leaders of the industry need to get together with the organizations that represent us, such as APCO, NENA, FCC, PSTC.... just to name a few and hammer out ideas, drafts, etc... 

You guys are so right.  It would be wonderful if all the states could get together and decide on a single certification.  I would be willing to bet that it will never happen because everyone will be partial to different orginizations.  I will admit I am biased to APCO because of my personal experience with their training and information.  It would be wonderful to have the confidence that you could ask for help out of other agencies in a disaster situation and know that everyone had the same basic training.  But we are already finding within our own state that no one can agree on one orginization. 

I think that dispatch certification should be mandatory, i think that we have a sometimes harder job (mentally) than police officers and think that certification would everyone on same page

You have to find someone who will accept your program and be willing to provide the certification and all that's necessary (paperwork, administering exams, etc). The Department of Health agreed but then reniged because it would have given their workers more to do and no money for their additional work... I believe you can still check on the APCO or NENA website for further info.

alhiser says ...

PGPD911 says ...

Dispatcher certification here in Florida is "voluntary" and you have to pay for it yourself. I feel that certification can only enhance the training program but I don't necessarily believe it would make anyone a "better" dispatcher.

 

Quick question for you then- I dont live in FL, but i once knew a dispatcher who reportedly had many years experience and claimed to have certs but was not much of a dispatcher- where do you get certified thru? This dispatcher claimed her "records" were destroyed. Just curious...

 

AJ

All I have is O.J.T. with not cert. I would love one, so later down the road in life I'll be able to show everyone the one cert. for the toughest job I've EVER had!!!!! 

I WORK IN THE STATE OF ALABAMA AND  I WISH WE HAD MINIMUN STANDARDS FOR DISPATCHERS JUST LIKE OFFICERS, MAYBE SOMETHING SIMILAR TO GEORGIAS SETUP

I think having the certification is a MUST!! In Texas, you have to be TCIC/NCIC-TLETS/NLETS (40 hr class) certified and have your basic telecommunicators license (40 hr class) within 1 year. Our dispatch certs have levels..Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. To get your intermediate you have to have the 2 certs listed above, spanish for law enforcement, crisis communications, Ethics, and atleast 2 years of dispatching. Your advanced requires all of the above and a minimum of 4 years of service. I think its awesome that we have to have these. Im very glad to have reached to my Advanced level. Its an awesome goal to work towards. You can never go wrong with any amount of training. Now that im a CTO..i want every certification i can get that will help me be a better dispatcher and more important, a better trainer!!

alhiser says ...

Interesting PG. We had a dispatcher (who has since been "let go" who "claimed" to have twelve years experience, and all these certifications, yet could not provide them or provide the contact information for where she got them. Came in one day and claimed that her agency or whereever she reportedly got them from "destroyed" the certs. Interesting. She clearly had NO experience and was a huge liability. VERY interesting. Thanks for the info!

Personally, I don't know of any dispatcher certification thats on the books now, I know every agency may run the same type of CTO program to where everyone is standard in what they teach. We rehauled our CTO program recently just for that purpose but it doesn't make you certified. Yes, APCO and NENA are the two front runners of certification and the law (in Florida) has been passed very recently and I know they had been working on that for several years. I believe certification should be mandatory and should be obtained at the same time you are release and/or before you are released from the CTO program. The certification should be the same standard for every state but it should be customized at a certain point to work with how your agency works. I mean, we (PD) are different from the (SO) in some ways but I feel only because we have different jurisdictions and are a smaller agency. That's about the only difference that should matter. Dispatching is by far also the most difficult job I've ever had but it's the job that I love the most out of them all... I make a difference in people's lives on a daily basis ~ and so do you so how does that make us different. In closing though, once again, being certified does NOT make you a better dispatcher. If you don't have it, you just don't have it...

i agree mrjim, either you can or you cant dispatch, no in between

MrJim911 says ...

PG I have to disgaree with one thing you said.  While I do agree if someone doesn't have "it" then they don't have it; I do think a quality certification program DOES make you a better dispatcher.  Just like getting certified as a Training Officer made me a better trainer and attending a Supervisor course made me a better Supervisor.  Those courses allowed me to learn new methods, ideas, and ways of doing different aspects of my job that I may have not learned on my own.  That would be the purpose of general certification for all Telecommunicators; to  make us all better at what we do.  The key word in all of this of course is "quality".  And I doubt we'll ever see a national certification process, although I do believe we'll see the continued growth of a certification requirement on a per state level. 

 

Point taken MrJim... knowledge and more ways to do one's job is never a bad thing!