The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International released for comments proposed changes to the draft of a candidate American National Standard (ANS) that identifies the minimum training requirements for public safety telecommunicators.

Candidate APCO ANS 3.103.1-200x identifies minimum training requirements for public safety calltakers, fire service dispatchers, law enforcement dispatchers and emergency medical dispatchers and defines this training for the public safety agencies to provide to telecommunicators in certain knowledge and skills. Changes include requiring agencies to provide training on handling calls pertaining to missing, abducted and/or sexually exploited children and handling calls from children.

“Training standardization for public safety communications professionals has become a topic of public interest following several high-profile incidents during which telecommunicators have been called into question,” APCO International President William Carrow said. “Once again, APCO International is responding to these calls to action by providing the public safety community with a tool to assist them in meeting the training needs of their communications professionals and ensuring these tools meet the ever-changing needs of our industry.”

APCO’s history with training standardization began at its 1995 annual conference, creating Project 33 and leading to the National Public Safety Telecommunicator Training Standard. The proposed changes are a result of comments received from the second public review and comment period of the candidate ANS.

The proposed standard was developed through research compiled from regional occupational analysis workshops conducted with over 100 high-performing telecommunicators from various agencies.

The proposed changes and the draft standard can be downloaded for review at apcointl.org/standards/standards-call-to-action/ and comments regarding the proposed changes must be submitted by Sept. 26 to [email protected].

About APCO International
APCO International is the world’s largest organization of public safety communications professionals. It serves the needs of public safety communications practitioners worldwide—and the welfare of the general public as a whole — by providing complete expertise, professional development, technical assistance, advocacy and outreach. For more information, visit www.apcointl.org.