Let's Get Rid of the Old "Unseen Heroes" Adage

Learning Objectives:

• Leveraging Social Media and Local News Media: Build an engaged following on platforms such as Facebook, X, YouTube and Instagram, and create a visible online presence for your heroes. Utilize the local news media to introduce and educate the public about how 9-1-1 serves and protects the community. At the end of this segment, you will learn about how to create engaging content to keep your followers engaged, and if successful, see an increase in the number of followers you have on your various platforms. learn how to establish a rapport with local reporters and generate positive news coverage when your telecommunicators save a life or successfully help deliver a baby. You can also arrange stories about your technological advancements, such as implementation of Text to 9-1-1 or Rapid SOS. If time allows, I can also touch on crisis communications, for when the news is bad.
• Public Engagement: Utilize your greatest asset -- your telecommunicators -- to serve as ambassadors for your PSAP. Our Community Outreach Recruitment and Engagement (C.O.R.E.) Supervisor will explain how our telecommunicators are sent out all over the county to engage with the public at festivals, parades, neighborhood association meetings and many other events. At the end of this segment, you’ll learn how to create your own C.O.R.E. group so that your telecommunicators can get out and be seen.
• Public Education. For 9-1-1, education can be done at any age. Any time you encounter someone in the public, you have an opportunity to teach them about the best practices for 9-1-1. When teaching Kindergarten through second grades, we use a book titled 'Impatient Pamela calls 9-1-1' by Mary Koski. This helps teach important necessary skills and gets young children familiar with the process of dialing 9-1-1. When working with children in third through fifth grades, we use a series of flashcards and games to help those kids understand the differences in emergencies versus non-emergencies. For students in 6th through 12 grades, we utilize a spinning wheel to make a game of answering questions about 9-1-1, and use our portable radios to demonstrate how 9-1-1 communicates with responders in the field. Our goal is to meet the students at their level and leave a lasting memory of good 9-1-1 practices.