MCP's Helps Manatee County, FL Replace Aging AV System

In Summary:

• Manatee County's audiovisual system that served the county’s public safety complex was experiencing significant issues concerning reliability, lack of flexibility and difficult-to-view screens.
• The county partnered with Mission Critical Partners to provide subject-matter expertise and to guide and support the procurement process.
• The new system is extremely flexible, even allowing users working remotely to access it, which has been an important benefit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background

Manatee County is located along Florida’s Gulf Coast. It is bordered by the cities of Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg to the north, Hardee and DeSoto counties to the east, the city of Sarasota to the south, and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. 

On-Demand Webinar: A Panel Discussion on 911 Crisis Preparedness Planning

In this on-demand session, MCP and regional and state-level 911 directors to learn best practices for mitigating major 911 service interruptions, including:

• Continuity-of-operations planning (COOP) at state and regional levels
• The importance of a crisis preparedness plan
• The use of tabletop exercises to assess the organization’s preparedness

On-Demand Webinar: The Biggest Public Safety Trends That Will Impact Public Safety in 2021

The year 2020 was fraught with challenges and their effects will be long-lasting. Now, 2021 has arrived with a “new normal,” but also with tremendous opportunities to improve emergency response. In this on-demand webinar, we highlight the trends that we predict will shape the new normal and public safety’s future.

Client Success Story: Tennessee Emergency Communications Board

In Summary

• The Tennessee Emergency Communications Board (TECB) provides management and operations support to Tennessee's 100 emergency communications districts (ECDs), which in turn provide emergency communications services to the state's citizens and visitors via 119 primary and 24 secondary or backup emergency communications centers.
• Because of cybersecurity threats, the TECB decided that it needed a baseline security and cybersecurity assessment of Tennessee's 911 environment, and the Board partnered with Mission Critical Partners to conduct the assessment.
• As part of the project, each ECC received a report that identified and prioritized the risks associated with its unique 911 network and system environment, as well as strategies and tactics that each ECC could use to improve its physical security and cybersecurity posture.

Background

The TECB is transitioning to a statewide emergency services Internet Protocol (IP) network (ESInet) that will provide the transport architecture necessary to deliver 911 calls to Next Generation 911 (NG911)-compliant ECCs. NG911 is an advanced broadband communications system that enables the transmission of real-time text, images and video, in addition to voice, to help improve emergency response. 

Episode 4: Solid Governance Strategies that Deliver Results

MCP's informational podcast series features the firm’s subject-matter experts and other industry leaders exploring a wide range of timely topics pertaining to mission-critical communications.

The fourth episode on the MCP Podcast Network is entitled “Solid Governance Strategies that Deliver Results.” This episode explores best practices for a solid governance strategy.

An edited transcript is available below.

Panelists include:

• Nancy Pollock, MCP senior consultant, applies her in-depth knowledge of public-safety communications, legislative, governance, policy, operations, and technology developed over her 35-year career to client engagements.
• Karyn Henry, J.D., an MCP communications consultant that brings years of wireless and telecommunications group leadership towards legal and regulatory initiatives. She brings policies and procedures expertise to MCP projects to develop for innovative solutions.
• The episode is moderated by Glenn Bischoff, MCP content specialist and former editor of Urgent Communications and Fire Chief magazines.

The Lean ECC: A Way to Make ECCs Better at What They Do

In Summary:

• The emergency communications landscape is changing rapidly and emergency communications centers (ECCs) have adapted the way that they handle 911 calls and support emergency responders
• Today, technology and science play a much larger role in the way ECCs operate — resulting in new approaches that are not only effective, but repeatable and scalable
• One such approach, known as the lean ECC, focuses on removing extraneous steps in a center's workflows to help meet national standards 
• This does not mean reducing staff — rather, this approach leverages an ECCs existing resources more efficiently to enhance the quantity and quality of what is being accomplished

Episode 3: How 911 Can Thrive During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic; Protecting Future 911 Resilience

MCP's informational podcast series features the firm’s subject-matter experts and other industry leaders exploring a wide range of timely topics pertaining to mission-critical communications.

The MCP Podcast Network, created by Mission Critical Partners, recently launched a three-part series entitled, “How the 911 Community Can Thrive During and Beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic.” This episode explores how an emergency communications center (ECC) leader's mindset and skillsets can protect future 911 resilience.

An edited transcript is available below.

Panelists include:

• Heather McGaffin, an MCP project manager. Prior to joining MCP, McGaffin was assistant chief of communications for Calvert County, Maryland, Department of Public Safety. 
• Jim Marshall, cofounder and director of the 911 Training Institute. Marshall is co-editor of The Resilient 9-1-1 Professional: A Comprehensive Guide to Surviving & Thriving Together in the 9-1-1 Center. 
• The episode is moderated by Glenn Bischoff, MCP content specialist and former editor of Urgent Communications and Fire Chief magazines.

The NIBRS Deadline Is Fast Approaching—Here's What You Should Be Doing

In Summary:

• Law-enforcement agencies nationwide are grappling with their migrations to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), an initiative to intended to improve the accuracy, timeliness and transparency of the nation's crime statistics, which could be used to help identify crime patterns and trends, and ultimately, prevent crime.
• Numerous challenges stand in the way of NIBRS compliance, and some agencies are at risk of not meeting the January 2021 deadline.
• This whitepaper identifies the benefits of the migration and explores tactics that could help them meet the deadline.

NIBRS is expected to foster greater consistency in the data that is being collected for each incident that occurs because it has defined standard ways of describing an incidentand collecting the data, so that apples-to-apples comparisons can be made at the national level. There are several challenges that exist for law enforcement agencies, including the need to retool their RMS to comply with the new rules that have been established, cost, and organizational change. This whitepaper discusses the following:

MCP Gives Lower Rio Grande Development Council Peace of Mind About Its Communications Network

In Summary:

• The Lower Rio Grande Development Council, which is a voluntary association of local governments formed under Texas law as one of the state's 24 regional councils of governments (COGs), serves the region's counties by delivering 911 emergency calls to 18 emergency communications centers (ECCs).
• They operate a Internet Protocol (IP)-based network is generally more vulnerable to outages compared to legacy networks and systems.
• The Council turned to Mission Critical Partners in 2019 to help diminish the risk of network/system failures and keep the 911 network and its supporting systems operating optimally by providing network management and monitoring services.

Background: 

MCP Helps Carroll County Move Closer to NG911 by Supporting Its GIS Efforts

In Summary:

• A county in Maryland needed to develop a plan to create and maintain GIS data and continue the migration to Next Generation 911 after a key GIS professional retired.
• GIS plays an essential role in the transition from legacy 911 service to NG911 service, which will rely on GIS-generated geospatial data to locate callers, route calls correctly, and dispatch the appropriate emegency response.
• The county partnered with Mission Critical Partners to assume the duties of the PSAP's departed GIS professional and provide a Model for Advancing Public Safety (MAPS) assessment that would act as a roadmap for implementing NG911 service within its jurisdiction.

Current and Future State of Cybersecurity in Public Safety Panel Discussion

In this on-demand webinar from Mission Critical Partners' virtual Conference for Advancing Public Safety hosted in June, hear from government leaders who have lived through an attack, as well as from public safety agency leaders who are taking aggressive steps to prevent attacks during an engaging panel discussion moderated by Glenn Bischoff.

Use the form below to download the on-demand webinar.

Whitepaper: Don’t Take Shortcuts When Developing NG911 GIS Data

Geographic information system (GIS) data is a foundational component in the migration to, and continuing operation of, Next Generation 911 (NG911) systems. But developing local GIS data so that it aligns with NG911 standards is a laborious and time-consuming process that can take months or years to complete.