From now through October 15, NENA is accepting session proposals for the NENA 2022 Conference & Expo taking place at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville, KY from June 11-16.

Presenting a session at NENA 2022 is an excellent opportunity to share your knowledge and experience with an audience of 9-1-1 professionals eager to gain and share information. It is also your chance to give back to the profession and help inspire, inform, and educate attendees on a variety of important issues.

 To ensure your submission receives due consideration, please ensure that:

• Your proposal is issue-focused, not product-focused;
• Your 65-word presentation description contains a precise objective;
• You are able to identify three clear audience takeaways;
• You fully complete all areas of the submission form and provide accurate contact information, including phone number(s), email address(es), and mailing address(es);
• You use proper grammar, capitalization, and punctuation; and
• You provide the names of any co-presenters with your submission (or prior to the close of the submission window).

All proposals are due by Friday, October 15. Click here to learn more.

Are you interested in the health and wellbeing of the 9-1-1 industry's most important assets? As 9-1-1 professionals, regardless of your job title or role in the 9-1-1 industry, your health and wellbeing is important and NENA is committed to serving you in the best possible way.

NENA invites you to engage with your peers in this new bi-monthly, Zoom-based health and wellness discussion! We will be seeking important insight from you on the health and wellness challenges you're facing and how we can best tackle them as a community. At the beginning of each discussion period, we will host a guest speaker, who will offer some tips and tools to help you in your everyday life. Even if you just want to attend to enjoy some peer camaraderie, all are welcome!

Click here on Wednesday, October 6 at 6PM Eastern to join the inaugural huddle.

Since the 911 SAVES Act of 2021 (H.R. 2351) was reintroduced by Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) on April 1, over 30 additional members of Congress have signed on as cosponsors of the bill, bringing the total to more than 80. A Senate companion bill (S. 1175) has also been introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). 

Now is the time to urge our members of Congress to cosponsor the 911 SAVES Act, and we need your help. Please help us advocate for this change by joining our grassroots campaign and sharing it with your colleagues. It's imperative that we recognize the essential and challenging service that 9-1-1 professionals provide.

You can find the current list of cosponsors here to see if your representative supports reclassification. A list of current sponsors of the Senate bill can be found here.

Contact NENA's Government Affairs Director, Dan Henry, if you have any questions.

i3 version 3 was published in July 2021, alongside numerous other standards that were completed or will be completed around the same period. Version 3 brings numerous new features and fundamental changes to the overall architecture; chiefly, one of these is a move from SOAP / XML to REST / JSON for programmatic interfaces and data structures, which means that even functions that do not have any feature changes or additions may have a completely new interface. This means that many interactions that have been tested at previous events need to be re-evaluated at NENA's 10th NG9-1-1 Industry Collaboration Event (ICE).

Alongside i3v3, many other standards were also published at around the same time, and many are directly incorporated into i3. Considering that this presents a "next generation" of NG9-1-1, the ICE Steering Committee has chartered the 10th ICE to focus on testing implementations of new and updated features in i3 version 3, as well as other specifications that i3 incorporates or relies on.

One of the biggest challenges for 9-1-1 across the country is funding. 9-1-1 professionals have to wear a lot of hats and sometimes determining how to find and apply for grants can seem too daunting to even attempt. Join us for this hour-long webinar, presented by NENA's Women in 9-1-1 Alliance, to learn about:

• How to best find and apply for grants;
• Case studies of successful grant applications; and
• Common pitfalls to avoid.

Can't attend on the 9th? Register now and you will receive an email after the live presentation with instructions for accessing the on-demand webinar archive.

*ILO stands for Instructor-Led Online

The number of ENPs continues to increase – clearly indicating the value of becoming an ENP in today’s 9-1-1 environment.  Invest in yourself and your career by joining those who have become 9-1-1 leaders in their PSAPs, as well as at chapter, state, and national levels.

Now is the time to sign up for the October testing window.  You have a choice of going to one of many nearby testing centers, all conforming to COVID precautions, or testing remotely. The next examination period will be in January, with applications due by December 10. 

The NG911 Institute welcomes the nomination (including self-nomination) of prospective Board Members who are committed to the mission of the NG911 Institute and are prepared to dedicate themselves in the service of the organization. The Institute invites persons who are members of the Institute and qualify for one of the positions to consider running for a Board position.

There is no limit to the number of nominations you can submit. You do not need to be a member of the Institute to submit a nomination, but you must be a current member of the Institute to be a nominee, vote in the election, or serve on the Board.

Click here to learn more. 

On July 16, 2020, the FCC adopted an Order (FCC 20-100) approving 988 as the 3-digit abbreviated dialing code to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, starting July 16, 2022. Customers must continue to dial 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to reach the Lifeline until July 16, 2022.

The Order requires all telecommunications carriers, interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, and one-way VoIP providers (covered providers) to make any network changes necessary to ensure that users can dial 988 to reach the existing National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by July 16, 2022. For 988 to work in certain area codes, 10-digit local dialing must first be implemented. 

Click here to read more. 

Implementing 988 for Mental Health Emergencies & NG911 Training Tips for Ops and IT Staff
Tuesday, September 14th — 12:00 P.M. ET
Register here!

Join this webinar for an update on the status of 988, the nation’s three-digit number for mental health emergencies, and the Washington, DC, Office of Unified Communications’ (DC-OUC) approach to NG9-1-1 training for their operational and IT staff.

Implementation of 988
In 2019, the FCC staff – in consultation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Department of Veteran Affairs, and the North American Numbering Council – released a report recommending the use of 988 as the three-digit code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Dr. John Draper and Dr. Richard McKeon will share information on the implementation of 988 as the uniform number for mental health emergencies, provide an update on its status for meeting the July 16, 2022, timeline, and what 9-1-1 needs to know to prepare.

NG9-1-1 Training
Like many public safety entities today, the DC-OUC is planning for a full transition to NG9-1-1. As part of this preparation, the Office recognized the need to train not only operational staff on NG9-1-1, but their information technology staff, as well. This session will provide an overview of the comprehensive training that has been developed to meet these needs.

No one could predict the speed at which COVID-19 changed healthcare, including the acceleration of telemedicine. For EMS and 9-1-1 systems, telemedicine has enabled safer triaging of possible COVID patients, avoiding unnecessary and expensive visits to the emergency department, and getting patients the right care at the right time.

But not every EMS agency or 9-1-1 emergency communications center is familiar with telemedicine or knows how to take advantage of these new tools and implement them in their agency. Even for those who are, figuring out how to fund these programs and get reimbursed adds an additional challenge.

To help address that gap, the Federal Interagency Committee on EMS collaborated with EMS leaders from across the country to create the "Telemedicine Framework for EMS and 9-1-1 Organizations," a 45-page guide explaining how agencies can use telemedicine to deliver high-quality, cost-efficient care.

In this webinar, you’ll hear from people who were involved in the creation of the Framework and who have helped implement telemedicine in an EMS system. They’ll highlight some of the challenges faced by EMS and 9-1-1 organizations—and how to use the Framework to help find solutions.