This Sunday, April 14, 2019, marks the beginning of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, a week that gives communities and emergency communications centers a chance to honor those who help save lives in times of personal or national crisis. The week runs through April 20, 2019.

During NPSTW, many communities take the time to thank 9-1-1 telecommunicators, communications staff trainers, supervisors and managers of communications centers, those that that maintain radio and emergency phone systems, and other public safety telecommunications staff across the country who work hard every day serving the public.

“It takes different ideas, skillsets and personalities to assist in being successful; a group of like-minded people coming together to accomplish a common goal, through good times and bad, through sadness and happiness, and through merriment and defeat,” said APCO President Holly Wayt. “Each of us has a unique set of attributes that we bring to the profession, but at the end of the day, we all have the same goals, which are to serve our citizens and first responders and ensure to the best of our abilities that everyone is kept safe from harm.”

The Association of Public-Safety Officials (APCO) International has established a website (www.npstw.org) dedicated to this week of recognition where individuals can share their personal stories about working in this important profession.

This year, emergency telecommunicators were asked to write about the teams they work with, and have submitted more than 100 stories about comm centers ranging in staff size from seven to hundreds. You can read their stories at www.npstw.org/like.