NENA is proud to announce that the association's application to become a member of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has been approved. ETSI is a leading standardization organization for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) standards fulfilling European and global market needs, with a mission focused on providing platforms for interested parties to work together to produce standards for ICT systems and services that are used globally.

"NENA's participation in ETSI is a natural outcome of the increasing international adoption of NENA's i3 family of standards for NG9-1-1, including serving as the basis for the European Emergency Number Association's NG1-1-2 requirements and ETSI's EMTEL specifications for emergency calling core services," said NENA's Technical Director, Brandon Abley. "By participating directly in ETSI standards work, NENA can help to harmonize standards internationally and ensure an ecosystem with a global economy of scale, interoperability across international boundaries, and a high standard of emergency calling standards for the public and emergency services in every nation."

Learn, Collaborate, & Contribute at the NENA NG9-1-1 Standards & Best Practices Conference!
#NENASBP is a conference unlike any other. It is an interactive, informative, attendee-driven event where you not only learn about the standards that are spurring the development and implementation of NG9-1-1 technology and operations best practices, but also create the guidelines, resources, and documents that enable NG services, systems, and PSAPs to reach their full potential.

With your peers from across the 9-1-1 universe, you’ll discuss and work to address the most pressing NG-related issues, including: GIS and NG-data needs; location services and accuracy; interoperability; telecommunicator SOPs; procurement and transition planning; security and resiliency; social media; apps and the Internet of Things; multimedia messaging and accessibility; disaster planning; staffing, hiring, and training; and the evolution of 9-1-1 center supervision and management.

Click here to see all of the review, workshop, and roundtable sessions happening at #NENASBP! Click here to download the event brochure.

No other event provides you with the opportunity to shape the future of 9-1-1 and impact public safety for decades to come! Don’t miss your chance to be part of it!

Learn more and register.

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Stress, Wellness, & Resiliency: A NENA Critical Issues Forum
Stress, PTSD, vicarious and cumulative trauma, burnout, and a variety of other mental and physical ailments plague the 9-1-1 community. We’ve only begun to acknowledge – and fight against – the negative impact of this profession on our lives; we’ve just scratched the surface when it comes to implementing programs to meet the self- and team-care needs of our peers and coworkers. Studies show that increasing overall wellness leads to greater personal and professional satisfaction, less turnover, decreased sick leave, and higher performance... but how do we get there?

Join us on January 23-24 in Austin, TX for this first-of-its-kind event to learn about the mental-, physical-, and organizational-health processes and programs you can use to enable the much-needed change in our community’s mindset, skillset, and culture as it relates to mental health and hygiene. During this interactive day-and-a-half program, you’ll gain the tools and resources you need to keep your team healthy and performing at their best. Topics include: 

• Managing and fighting stress and its effects
• Recognizing, preventing, and mitigating burnout
• Identifying the root causes of poor performance (and correcting them)
• Combatting PTSD
• Decreasing stress-related turnover
• Developing and deploying peer-support programs
• Utilizing positive-psychology leadership techniques
• Creating a "culture of wellness"
• Helping at-risk and struggling employees
• Preventing suicide
• Using NENA’s stress standard and critical-incident diffusing tool 

Learn more and register.

 

9-1-1 Goes to Washington (#NENAGTW) brings you and hundreds of your fellow 9-1-1 professionals together with government leaders in our nation's capital to address today's most pressing 9-1-1 and emergency communications issues. #NENAGTW is the only event where you learn about the policy challenges facing 9-1-1 and then take immediate action to address them through dialogue with your elected and appointed officials. Join us in Washington for a dynamic, interactive program where you receive: 

• The inside information you need to shape the 9-1-1 and emergency communications agendas for the Administration and Congress;
• Critical knowledge of federal and state 9-1-1, homeland security, and emergency communications legislation, regulation, and policy initiatives; and
• An opportunity to speak directly with members of Congress, administration officials, and key staff to make your voice heard on behalf of the entire 9-1-1 community.

Click here to register and here to book your housing.

NENA’s Enhanced PSAP Registry and Census (EPRC) is a secure, cloud-based, interactive mapping-and-search tool that contains contact information and boundary information for PSAPs in the United States. The EPRC helps PSAPs deliver requests for service to the proper center in cases when a 9-1-1 call does not arrive at the appropriate PSAP – and it is free to use for all verified public-safety entities. Join us for this webinar that: 

• Describes the EPRC purpose, function, and architecture;
• Provides an overview of information available in the EPRC; and
• Demonstrates EPRC basic functions, including PSAP search.

Presenter: Brandon Abley, ENP - NENA

CEUs: Attend this webinar and receive one-half ENP re-certification point towards the ten-point maximum for NENA courses in the Professional Development CEU/Course Credits section.

Can't attend on the 15th? Register now and you will receive an email after the live presentation with instructions for accessing the on-demand webinar archive.

Webinar Access Info: Dial-in and web-access details provided automatically via email upon registration.

• A resume, including previous work experience, references, and contact information
• A letter of support from your employer, if applicable
• Three letters of recommendation, at least one of which should be from a former student
• A ten-minute video of yourself instructing a class and teaching a concept (please use www.wetransfer.com to share your video)

 See documents below for full requirements: 

• Course Instructor Requirements & Selection
• CMCP Instructor Requirements & Selection

 Applications are due by February 7.

01.13.20 | 9-1-1 Customer Service: Takes Seconds, Saves Minutes | Des Plaines, IL | Register
01.27.20 | (3-day course) | Center Training Officer Program (CTO) | Garfield, NJ | Register
01.29.20 | (3-day course) | 9-1-1 Center Supervisor Program | Chico, CA | Register 
02.12.20 | 9-1-1 Center Culture: A Strategy for Personal & Organizational Success | Pontiac, MI | Register 
02.17.20 | (5-day course) | Center Manager Certification Program (CMCP) | Webb City, MO |  Register
02.17.20 | (3-day course) | Center Training Officer Program (CTO) | Rolla, MO | Register
02.24.20 | (3-day course) | 9-1-1 Center Supervisor Program | Garfield, NJ | Register 
02.24.20 | 9-1-1 Customer Service: Takes Seconds, Saves Minutes | Gurnee, IL | Des Plaines, IL | Register 
03.04.20 | (3-day course) | 9-1-1 Center Supervisor Program | Wheaton, IL | Register  
03.09.20 | (3-day course) | Center Training Officer Program (CTO) | Clinton Twp., MI | Register 
03.27.20 | 9-1-1 Center Consolidation: A Plan for Success | Hot Springs, AR | Register 

Check out the NENA Education Calendar to see additional upcoming classes!

The NENA Managing & Monitoring NG9‑1‑1 Information Document provides guidance to 9‑1‑1 authorities at all levels on considerations and best practices for adoption in managing and monitoring NG9‑1‑1. The topics covered are comprehensive and general guidance is given to assist Authorities in planning for NG9‑1‑1 as the authority transitions from legacy 9‑1‑1 to a full implementation of NG9‑1‑1.

Members of the Working Group can download the document and submit comments here by selecting "Add a Comment" from the "Edit" icon.

All others can download the document and submit comments here by selecting "Add a Comment" from the "Document Actions" icon.

Please complete all requested data and click "Save," or, if submitting multiple comments, click "Save and Add Another."

If you are providing editorial comments (such as typos, grammatical errors, style/numbering errors, or incorrect references/links to documents), then please document them in one single comment and list the page and line number(s) for each.

All comments are due by 11:59PM Eastern on January 31, 2020. You may contact the NENA Committee Resource Manager with any questions or concerns.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has shared the following information as a primer for assisting in the protection of our Nation’s critical infrastructure in light of the current tensions between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States and Iran’s historic use of cyber offensive activities to retaliate against perceived harm.

Foremost, CISA recommends organizations take the following actions:

1.  Adopt a state of heightened awareness. This includes minimizing coverage gaps in personnel availability, more consistently consuming relevant threat intelligence, and making sure emergency call trees are up to date.

2.  Increase organizational vigilance. Ensure security personnel are monitoring key internal security capabilities and that they know how to identify anomalous behavior. Flag any known Iranian indicators of compromise and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) for immediate response.

3.   Confirm reporting processes. Ensure personnel know how and when to report an incident. The well-being of an organization’s workforce and cyber infrastructure depends on awareness of threat activity. Consider reporting incidents to CISA to help serve as part of CISA’s early warning system (see Contact Information section below).

4.  Exercise organizational incident response plans. Ensure personnel are familiar with the key steps they need to take during an incident. Do they have the accesses they need? Do they know the processes? Are your various data sources logging as expected? Ensure personnel are positioned to act in a calm and unified manner.

Click here to read the full alert bulletin. 

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has launched a new webpage for the public and law enforcement to report blocked highway-rail grade crossings.

The new FRA Blocked Crossing webpage requests specific information from users reporting blocked crossings—including date, time, location and duration. The agency expects it will take an average of three minutes for users to complete the report. FRA notes that this should only be done in a manner that is consistent with the safe operation of a vehicle.

FRA will use the information collected to gain a more complete picture of where, when and for how long such obstructions occur at the nation’s approximately 130,000 public grade crossings, and what impacts result from this. FRA will share the information with stakeholders, using it to help facilitate local solutions to blocked crossing issues.

There is currently a strong focus by regulators in North America on combating nuisance calls, including robocalling and illegitimate caller ID spoofing, using caller authentication techniques based on standards developed by ATIS and the IETF. While published standards address mechanisms for caller authentication in general, they do not specifically consider caller authentication in the context of 9-1-1 calls or callback calls. There are new standards development activities underway to address the application of caller ID spoofing mitigation techniques to 9-1-1 and callback calls. It is critical that public safety have input into these standards development activities to ensure that the operational needs of 9‑1‑1 authorities and PSAPs are supported by the standards that ultimately get generated.This working group will address topics including: 

• Identification of use cases associated with legitimate and illegitimate caller ID spoofing;
• Description of the information that should be displayed at the PSAP when verification of caller information passes/fails;
• Specification of the handling/treatment of calls where the caller information is suspected to be spoofed;
• Description of the role of analytics in the display and treatment of suspected spoofed calls;
• Considerations related to caller location spoofing reporting and mitigation; and
• Considerations related to the display of PSAP caller ID on callback calls (and in particular, the ability to allow the PSAP caller ID to remain "private").

Meeting days and times are TBD. Click here to join the working group.

 

Did you know that NENA has a great way to recognize telecommunicators who have gone above and beyond? It’s called the TC Spotlight! If you know of a TC that has done an exceptional job while handling a call, is devoted to his or her career, is a mentor to others, a great cheerleader for your agency, or just plain rocks, then we would like to help celebrate them! Share their awesome talents with the rest of the world by sending an email to tccaucus@nena.org and letting us know the nominee's name, years of service, current agency and position, and why he or she is being nominated.