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2022

Congratulations to the 2022 NPSTW Contest Winners!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our NPSTW contest asking what superpowers are possessed by or desired by public safety telecommunications. You are all superheroes in our book! The winner of the $100 gift …

NPSTW Forsyth County Emergency Services

Every April we are ecstatic to begin the second week of the month. For the majority of our agencies’ history, the event was not celebrated, however, for the past five years, we have celebrated NPSTW …

Never lose empathy

Telecommunicators have one of the toughest jobs in public safety. They show up day and night, taking the difficult calls. They are the unseen heroes. If telecommunicators could have one superpower, it should be the …

Saudi Aramco 911 Celebration

Behind the scenes and around the clock, 911 dispatchers are delivering safe environments and security across our critical facilities and communities. Their diligence and sense of duty mark the signature of their everyday work.

Using Team Work to Overcome Challenges

The Telecommunicators at Forsyth County Emergency Services answer approximately 115,000 911 calls, and 264,000 non-emergency calls a year (2021).  That is around 315 911 calls a day and around 723 non-emergency calls a day.  Just …

LISTEN TO EMPATHIZE

As a dispatcher, I believe that public safety telecommunicators have two superpowers: listening and empathy. Empathy is a critical human skill that a lot of people lack. Not only does it allow us to create …

Best Wishes for NPSTW From The Monitoring Association

On behalf of the Board of Directors, membership community, and staff of The Monitoring Association (TMA), it is with great joy that we extend our best wishes to APCO International, its leadership, and its members as you join together in celebration of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.

Wonder Woman

Supervisor Tina Johnson is not only amazing and wonderful person. Tina is literally Wonder Woman   Even though Tina is assigned as night shift dog-watch supervisor, with all her experience, she wears many hats in this …

Active Bees

Here at Adams County E911 Dispatch Center we take our job to the max. We go over and beyond with each call to ensure we are getting all the help that the callers need. We …

Fun with Appreciation

We celebrate NPSTW by having lots of fun. The Administration staff brings us awesome gifts and treats us everyday with lunch and even a cookout on the weekend, whether it be a barbeque or a …

The Power to listen “between the lines”

Much of what we do is skill, knowledge and experience, but a great portion is also intuition.  Often our calls are not ‘black & white’ and it takes the use of our ‘Spidey Senses’ to …

Communication Superheroes Unite

When you have the unexpected come up, which is frequently, the best superpower is teamwork. At Classic Air Medical’s Comm Center, our team relies on each other’s strengths to get the job done and the …

Resilient Dedicated Hard Workers to the Extreme

To be honest with our current staffing shortage I wish my superpower was the ability to clone my current telecommunicators. They are some of the most resilient, dedicated, compassionate, hard working individuals and they are …

The Power of Incantation

Ten of my 25 years in the field of 9-1-1 have been in senior management which means I spent 15 years as a frontline hero behind the headset. Make no mistake, I AM still a …

Psychic Abilities

We at WestCOMM believe that our dispatchers are psychic. Dispatchers often have the ability to predict future events as we constantly need to be thinking multiple steps ahead. We predict influxes of wire and tree …

Dispatchers Unite !!!!

     I think anyone who has ever dispatched would agree that having crazy super powers like being able to see the future, mind reading or even being able to be in two places at …

Dispatcher : The unseen Artist

Here in the dispatch center, countless days and hours are spent asking questions. Some would argue that it is our most frequent task. WHO,WHAT,WHERE,WHEN,WHY? Question after question… It’s a never ending stream of new and …

Fearless Warriors

I have the pleasure of working with some awesome and fearless dispathers. My job is to make sure that they are paid accurately and correctly. My superpower would be able to pay them the millions …

A Message from APCO’s President

You are a hero behind the headset. Regardless of your tenure in this industry, you’ve made a difference in someone’s life. Every time you look in the mirror, please reflect and remember that. Annually, during …

The Invisible Hand: Calm in the Storm

Nobody wishes to ever experience the traumatic experiences that are involved in a life-altering emergency. Never has there been someone to wake up, and hope to suffer through an emergency situation. Nevertheless, the world we …

The Voice On the Line

It takes a special strength and resilience to do what our emergency dispatchers do. Every day I see our operators take control of serious, sometimes life-threatening situations using just a telephone and a radio. They …

Our Superheroes work with what we have….

Our dispatchers have the superpower of being the informational hub and nucleus of our city.  They are the calm in chaos, the trusted lifeline between our citizens and field personnel; they are efficient, brilliant and …

Amazingly Arid (aka: Super Dry)

Amazingly Arid is an essential Dispatcher super-power. It is used in a variety of ways: Bladder control is paramount when leaping tall buildings in a single bound…while working through a major incident without a potty …

Empathy: The Highest Form of Knowledge

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.” -Plato Emergency telecommunicators handle calls for service ranging from barking dogs and noise complaints to …

Actions Faster Than Words

So often, as Telecommunicators, we find that we’ve already completed half of our tasks before we’ve even been able to explain to the callers that help is on the way. We’ve entered our information into …

ESP – Mind reading

Dispatchers are expected to anticipate every need of their officers (read their mind) . Just get someone here!  (know where “here” is) As a supervisor, know exactly what call (out of 30 on your screen) …

Location Identification

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to know where people are without asking them? I’d say read their minds but not sure we’d want that power. To just automatically know as soon as you …

Megabrain

Every telecommuncator must have a megabrain.  We have to be able to be quick-thinking, see into the future to anticipate the questions our first responders might have and be ready for anything to happen at …

Mind reading, astral projection and cloning

There are multiple superpowers that I think could be beneficial for a telecommunicator to have. One of the most simple and obvious ones being mind reading. There are often times where, as a telecommunicator, I …

The Calm Of The Storm

Public safety telecommunicators begin and end each call with a sense of calm. They never know what type of call they are receiving when the headset rings. They take a breath, answer the call, and …

Extra-Strength Omnilingualism to the rescue

Omnilingualism would be a must have as a Telecommunicator superhero. Just imagine having the ability to not only read/comprehend, but also fluently carry on a conversation in any and all languages. You would be able …

The Compassionate Ones

I wish I had the Superpowers to help and save every caller in distress from my console, especially the elderly and children because they hold a very soft spot in my heart.

Ability to Portal

This Superpower would give our Dispatchers the ability to portal from console to bed.  We all need that extra hour of sleep between back to back 16 hour shifts!  #DispatchersNeedZZZs