Emergency Communications and Response program chair Tim Williams and instructor Doug Johnson know that the people who answer 911 calls are critical players in every emergency scenario. The pair have been developing and teaching in the program since its inception at MacEwan 24 years ago.
They recently sat down with the Office of Research Services Research Recast(ed) podcast to talk about a research project that looks into stressors and wellness of emergency communications officers. They hope to use the data to improve MacEwan’s Emergency Communications and Response program, and make sure grads are equipped to handle everything that comes at them in an ever-changing field.
“A communicator kind of takes [the caller] from a panic situation to a situation where you can really help someone in need,” remarks Williams, chair of Public Safety and Justice Studies. “It's really quite a skill.”
Johnson, who helped create the program, says “There's been some really good research from a first-responder perspective. For the police, fire and EMS, we've done a great job. But there's not been a lot of good research done on the communicators.”
This gap and a lack of depth in the research was the impetus for a collaborative research project headed by Dr. Marcella Siqueira Cassiano from the University of Winnipeg, in collaboration with Williams, Johnson and researchers from Memorial University.
“It's not just a stressor research,” says Johnson. “It's actually wellness, job satisfaction and technology training.”
The research will focus on three big goals. First, they hope to uncover a baseline understanding of the wellness of communicators.
Second, they will try to pinpoint very specific causes of stress, which might include location of the call centre, ergonomics, lighting, team cohesion, technology and specifics of the calls received (e.g., whether it was a life-threatening emergency.) They’re also looking at what can help protect a person from the effects of stress – exercise, for example.
Finally, they hope to examine if current training in this area sufficiently prepares emergency communicators for the reality of their jobs.
“We really want to get some good, granular data about how close are we to the mark. Is our certificate program really delivering what the field needs?” says Williams.
The field itself is facing a huge transformation: The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has mandated that all public safety answering points transition to a new digitized environment – Next Generation 911 – by 2025. It will have improved location verification, texting capabilities, and some locations may even be able to accept video streams and photos that could help assess and manage situations.
“We need to make sure that the program is current to what's happening in the environment,” says Johnson. “So a big part of the project is to get the data to help us adjust the program to meet the current needs. We want to do everything we can to make sure [our students] are fully prepared.”
The team also hopes to use the data to inform the development of a Bachelor of Public Safety and Justice degree.
And while this research is focusing only on communicators in Alberta for now, they hope to extend the program nationally.
Learn more about Johnson and Williams’ research and more in the full episode of Research Recast(ed).
Watch the full podcast