Due to overwhelming demand and a sell-out at our host hotel and conference site, the Gaylord Palms, we've added a block of rooms at the nearby Courtyard Orlando Lake Buena Vista. Shuttle service will be provided to and from the Gaylord. Click here to book your room at the Courtyard.

Learn, Grow, Connect, & Discover at NENA 2024!

At NENA 2024, you will not only hear about the public safety issues of today and tomorrow, but also gain practical, real-world know-how that you can take home with you and put into action immediately. Featuring inspiring keynote speakers, more than ninety hours of breakout sessions that inform and empower, career-building courses and workshops with real-world applications, nightly networking events that help you make the right connections, and an Expo Hall showcasing cutting-edge products and services, NENA 2024 is the must-attend event of the year. Don’t miss your chance to be a part of it!

**New for 2024** events include our first-ever Frontline Forum; small, medium, and large PSAP roundtables; and the AI & Public Safety Workshop – all included in your full-conference registration! 

Click here to register and here to book your overflow housing. 

NENA’s #ThankYou911 (TY911) campaign raises public awareness and appreciation of 9-1-1 professionals for the vitally important, difficult work they do and generates tangible expressions of recognition and support.

This NENA toolkit provides you with proven, tested ideas and resources that you and your colleagues can use to encourage 9-1-1 appreciation at the local level. National 9-1-1 Education Month and Telecommunicator Week are perfect times for this, but any time of year can work. 

Click here to read more. 

Second Annual Pulse of 9-1-1 Survey Highlights Critical Issues and Opportunities for Improvement

Today, NENA announced the findings of the second annual Pulse of 9-1-1 State of the Industry Survey. The comprehensive survey, conducted by NENA in partnership with Carbyne, a global leader in cloud-native emergency call management, provides insights into the ongoing challenges faced by Emergency Communications Centers (ECCs) and 9-1-1 professionals across North America.

The 2024 survey delves into the "domino effects" of staffing shortages, technological gaps, and wellness and mental health impacts, reaffirming the immense pressure on ECC personnel.

"There is an undeniable strain on the people who are the first first responders in public safety, the human voice on the line in a time of crisis," said Brian Fontes, CEO of NENA. "Severe staffing challenges are continuing in 9-1-1, from difficulties in hiring new personnel to problems with employee retention and a mature workforce that shows signs of stress and burnout. We can and must do better for the people of 9-1-1, who do so much for us." 

Click here to read more. 

NENA is proud to offer seven Women in 9-1-1 (WIN) scholarships to the upcoming #NENA2024 Conference & Expo!

This scholarship opportunity is open to any female 9-1-1 professional with at least two years of experience and in good standing with her current employer.

Previous scholarship recipients and those who have previously attended a NENA national annual conference are NOT eligible for this award.

Each scholarship recipient receives:

• Complimentary registration to the NENA 2024 Conference & Expo;
• Complimentary registration for a one-day pre-conference course of choice at NENA 2024; and
• A $1,000 travel stipend.

To be eligible for a scholarship, you must complete and submit the scholarship application, including the upload of your long-answer essay to the question, "If you could bring a unique process or technology into your emergency communication center, like AI-powered technologies, reflect on how you believe these can contribute to improving the efficiency and inclusiveness of your center's operations?"

Applications will be accepted through April 22, 2024. Scholarship winners will be notified no later than mid-May.

Click here to apply!

VanGundy elected 2nd Vice President, will serve as association President in 2026-27

Recently, NENA: The 9-1-1 Association announced that Roxanne VanGundy, ENP of the Lyon County (KS) Emergency Communications Center has been elected by the organization’s members to serve on its Board of Directors and help lead the association’s mission to improve 9-1-1 through standards development, training, thought leadership, outreach, and advocacy.

VanGundy, who will ascend to 1st Vice President in 2025 and then association President in 2026, is a nineteen-year public-safety veteran, having served in both Kansas and Alaska as a telecommunicator, trainer, and supervisor. Currently, she serves as the Director of the Lyon County (KS) Communications Center where she is responsible for the overall administration and management of the countywide consolidated emergency-communications system.

Active on both the local and national levels, VanGundy is a Past President of Kansas NENA, where she led efforts that saw dispatchers reclassified as "Emergency Responders" in the state. She is a frequent presenter at public-safety conferences, including NENA’s annual conference. She has been the Co-Chair of the NENA Wellness Committee since 2020.

In the other contested election, incumbent Karin Marquez, ENP was re-elected to serve as Private Sector Director.

VanGundy, Marquez, and seven other Board of Directors members will be sworn in this July at the NENA 2024 Conference & Expo in Orlando, FL: President, Melanie Jones, ENP; 1st Vice President, Lee Ann Magoski, ENP; Immediate Past President, Charlie Cullen, ENP; Northeastern Director Mark Fletcher, ENP; Southeastern Director, Cassie Lowery, ENP; North Central Director, Leah Hornaeck, ENP; and Canadian Director, Holly Barkwell, ENP.

The NG9-1-1 Interoperability Oversight Commission (NIOC) is pleased to announce the 2024 appointments to the Commission. The NIOC consists of stakeholders from the public and private sectors that are affected by standards-driven NG9-1-1 security and interoperability programs. 

The NIOC is the independent oversight governance body for the NG9-1-1 Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Forest Guide, and other technical-interoperability services necessary for interoperability and security in NG9-1-1. NIOC Commissioners serve two-year terms per the Bylaws. At the end of their terms, Commissioners may resign or seek reappointment, and can serve unlimited consecutive terms at the discretion of the NENA Board.  

Click here to read more and view the appointees. 

The NENA GIS Data Transition Information Document offers guidance to assist those who have been tasked with becoming Geographic Information System (GIS) Data Providers for Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) or are otherwise involved in planning or executing an NG9-1-1 data transition.

As a Public Review 2, only the areas highlighted in yellow are open for comment.

Members of the Working Group may download the document and submit comments by going here and then selecting "Add a Comment" from the "Edit" icon drop down options. All others may download the document and submit comments by going here and then selecting "Add a Comment" from the "Document Actions" icon drop down. Please complete all requested data and "Save" OR if submitting multiple comments, select "Save and Add Another." If you receive an error when adding a comment, please email the comment(s) directly to the Committee Resource Manager.

If you are providing editorial comments, such as corrections to typos, grammatical errors, style/numbering errors, or incorrect references/links to documents, please document them under one comment and list the page and line number for each (ex. Page 22, Line 761: Correct moist to most). If the correction is within a table, please provide the table name and page number of the error and your recommended change.

All comments are due by May 13, 2024. You may contact the NENA Committee Resource Manager with any questions or concerns.

NENA will soon be launching its first cohort of the Transformative Empowerment and Mentoring (TEAM) Program. A significant and integral part of the six-month program is the monthly meetings with all of the mentors and proteges together. The Mentoring Committee seeks volunteers for an approximately two-month commitment to help design these structured, facilitated meetings with interactive content that will benefit everyone in the cohort on their journey of professional development and personal discovery.

Interested in volunteering? Email committee co-chair Cindy McCraw.

NENA seeks a new Working Group Co-Chair for the Virtual PSAP Management (VPM) Working Group. The VPM WG is in the Public Review approval stage and needs assistance to shepherd the document through to published. The document is an ANSI-candidate document.

A Working Group Co-Chair is not required to hold a NENA membership or to be a subject-matter expert (SME). The applicant should possess administrative, facilitatory, and/or management skills related to meeting facilitation, preparation of agendas and notes, document creation and management, and overall working group discussion. Training will be provided. More information on the Roles and Responsibilities of Working Group Chairs can be found in the NENAkb and NENA-ADM-001, section 7.3.

If you are interested in applying for the VPM Working Group Co-Chair role, please complete the application located at the bottom of the Development Steering Council webpage, under NENA Development Group Documents, and return via email to the PSAP Logistics Committee Co-Chairs Amy McDowell and Diane Harris.

NENA seeks volunteers for the NENA Standard for Emergency Incident Data Object (EIDO) Work Group to shepherd the draft standard through the document review process. The group is responsible for the data content and format of the Emergency Incident Data Object, which is the representation of incident state in a Next Generation 9-1-1 system. In NG9-1-1 an Incident is a real world event that may be the subject of one or more emergency calls. The EIDO is the fundamental data object for incident state, used extensively in NG9-1-1 to exchange incident data among agencies and functional elements within an agency.

We are looking for people with operational and/or technical experience in emergency incident processing, CAD and Call Handling systems, or in designing or using JSON objects.

Click here to volunteer.

NENA seeks volunteers for the 911-988 Canadian Operability Work Group to shepherd the draft standard through the document review process. The working group is tasked to create a national standard in Canada for 911-988 interoperability and interactions for suicide prevention, emotional stress, and other related calls through standardized operational and technical process that reduces risk, creates accuracy and efficiency in service delivery, and promotes caller, public and responder safety.

This Work Group seeks to provide call and information sharing solutions to Emergency Communications Centers (ECCs) and 988 call centers throughout Canada. The goal is to provide uniform best practices to stakeholders in the ECC environment and the new 988 system; and begin to address each entity's role and responsibility, as well as the processes and training needed to properly handle mental health crises.

We are looking for ECC representatives, mental health professionals, public safety responders, and any other interested parties. By becoming part of the solution, you will have the opportunity to not only help to shape our new direction and speed up this process but will be on the ground floor of these changes, and among the first to learn of our new direction. This information will help you and your agency or company plan for the future and be better prepared to serve your customers.

Click here to volunteer!