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While it is common for law enforcement agencies to provide citizens’ academies for their communities, an independent 9-1-1 center, like the Santa Cruz Consolidated Emergency Communications Center, was challenged to find a similar forum. By establishing our own Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1, the Santa Cruz Consolidated Emergency Communications Center (SCCECC) is able to reach the community and promote a better understanding of how the 9-1-1 center operates.
The program was designed to provide public education and develop better appreciation of how 9-1-1 calls are handled. Since dispatchers are almost always the first point of contact for a citizen in need of help – and callers frequently identify the dispatcher as the “voice of the agency” – the program has proven extremely beneficial to both callers and our user agencies. An added, unanticipated benefit was the Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1’s power as a recruiting tool. Like many 9-1-1 centers, the SCCECC has been challenged to find a pool of highly qualified candidates. Many applicants are uninformed about the intense working environment of a 9-1-1 center. By encouraging interested candidates to attend our Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1, we’ve been able to improve our candidate pool by identifying individuals who are motivated and informed about a career in public safety dispatching.
Goals and ObjectivesThe primary goal of our Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1 is to provide a forum for informing and educating the public about 9-1-1 and, specifically, the SCCECC’s role within the community. It also provides a means for making positive connections with the media. Since we are a consolidated communications center serving the California cities of Watsonville, Capitola, Santa Cruz and the County of Santa Cruz, it is important to explain our organizational structure as our center differs greatly from a communications center that serves a single jurisdiction.
Our three main objectives are that participants: will have a solid understanding of our organization and how we serve the community; will understand how a 9-1-1 call is processed from start to finish; and finally, will see how our organization uses quality improvement processes to provide the community with the highest level of public safety communications services.
Design and MeasurementUsing the Kemp Model for Instructional System Design, a needs assessment was completed that included the students’ needs as well as the organization’s instructional goals. This framework was provided to our team of academy instructors who, in their regular group meetings, worked out the curriculum details and instructional logistics. Once the details were resolved, the curriculum and lesson plans were documented, and the instructional materials were developed, our first Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1 was ready for presentation.
The SCCECC has the ability to publish bound training materials and every academy participant is provided with an academy workbook. We have accumulated a large training library of video and audiotapes and we use these materials to enhance the curriculum presentation. Also, we use the same training simulator during our citizens’ academy to enhance the participant’s learning experience, as is used for the training academy.
Critical Issues The original proposal for the Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1 identified several critical issues: funding; curriculum development; scheduling; identification of instructors; marketing; and time constraints. Since 1996, when we first opened our doors, the Santa Cruz Consolidated Emergency Communications Center has supported an in-house training program, including an on-site training academy for entry-level dispatch trainees. It was easy to expand the scope of duties for the training academy staff to include the Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1. This also resolved most of the funding issues as the facility and equipment needed to conduct the citizens’ academy were already in place.
Like our other training academies, the citizens’ academy is conducted in our training/conference room, which is furnished with basic classroom equipment such as, white boards, bulletin boards, tables, and chairs. Additionally, the room can be configured to accommodate computer aided dispatch (CAD) terminals, projectors, and video and audio presentations, all of which are used to conduct the citizens’ academy. Our academy staff also publishes training materials such as handbooks, learning activities, and completion certificates. All of these costs – staff time, equipment and facilities, and training materials – were funded by our current operating budget.
Knowing that time is a precious resource for our attendees, one of our biggest challenges was to organize the Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1 into a reasonable number of hours. By working diligently, the academy instructors were able to fit the entire curriculum into twelve hours: eight hours of classroom instruction and a four-hour sit-along with a dispatcher in the communications center. To achieve the objectives for our citizens’ academy, the curriculum covers six topics: orientation to our organization; 9-1-1 call taking; law enforcement dispatching; fire service dispatching; emergency medical dispatching; and our quality improvement program. Participants are required to complete the sit-along within three weeks of finishing the classroom instruction, after which a certificate of completion is issued.
For our first academy in September 1998, we accepted participants by invitation only. The invitation list included media representatives, elected and appointed officials, community group representatives, and key personnel from our user agencies. Marketing our first academy to these influential individuals quickly established credibility, support, and recognition for our citizens’ academy. The response to the first academy was small but very successful. Subsequent sessions of the citizens’ academy have been filled to capacity (30 participants) and a waiting list has been established. For every citizens’ academy, press releases and community mailings are issued. Announcements are also posted on our website, in the front lobby, and in the public areas of our user agencies.
Our single largest ethnic population is Hispanic, and many of these citizens speak Spanish as their primary language. So when the critical issue of offering a Spanish language version of the citizens’ academy came up, we found a solution. Using a bilingual dispatcher, all promotional and instructional materials were translated into Spanish and using bilingual instructors, we have conducted two Spanish language Citizens’ Academies for 9-1-1. Moving ForwardSince its inception, the popularity of the Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1 had grown to the point that we needed to increase its availability to our community. Given the time restraints of our academy participants and our staff, we decided to use technology to make this improvement and developed an on-line Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1. Using the same instructional technology we use for our CD-ROM based dispatcher training, the citizens’ academy is available in both English and Spanish on our website. The first on-line version of the citizens’ academy had eight participants successfully complete the program. After the last traditional citizen’s academy in February 2004, the total number of Citizens’ Academy for 9-1-1 graduates was 168.
We’ve successfully used the citizens’ academy to improve the public’s understanding of the communication center and its operation, as well as develop constructive relationships with local media personnel. In every respect, we feel we have met and exceeded our original goals and objectives.
Program ContactsFor more information about this program, please contact the following Santa Cruz Consolidated Emergency Communications Center staff members or visit our website: www.sccecc.org.
Lisa M. Sullivan, Support Services Manager (831) 471-1003 or lisa@sccecc.org
Rosanna McKinney, Training Supervisor (831) 471-1006 or rosanna@sccecc.org
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Because
most callers will only dial 9-1-1 once or twice in their lifetime, we cannot
measure the success of our citizens’ academy by changes in our callers’
behavior. The single greatest indicator of the success of this program is its
popularity. Also, to measure the effectiveness of each citizens’ academy class,
attendees complete a survey designed to measure how well the academy met its
objectives. The questions are carefully worded to elicit participants’ opinions
of the program and the agency. Careful review of the completed surveys enables
our staff to determine what may be lacking from the academy, as well as what the
community perceives as inefficiencies or inadequacies within our center. 