The Town Must Come Together

Written by Roxanne Van Gundy, published on January 19, 2021

I come from a one stop light town that has far too many churches and beauty parlors for one geographical area. Local farmers sit at Pop’s Diner and report the town’s news better than the county paper. We all go to football games on Friday nights, which would probably be a great time for robbers to show up and clean us out. (Kidding don’t rob us.). Our cheerleading squad is nationally ranked by the way. That’s a pretty big deal. We are never “ranked” at anything.

Everyone buys WAY more Girl Scout cookies, band fruit or football coffee than we need because want to support all the kids, not just our own.  We have a fishing hole that’s called, “The Country Club”, which sounds quite glamourous, but in reality is more of a Travis Tritt song.  If you are from a small town, you get it. If you’re not, I hope it gives you a picture of a wonderful, tight knit community, because that’s what we are.

I am very proud to be someone raised with roots in a rural town.  Most people from our town will tell you that they were raised to remember two things, you don’t forget where you come from, and the town always comes together to make things happen. No matter what.

I think about that last part a lot, as I navigate different parts of my leadership life. The phrase, “the town has to come together to make things happen”, fits into a lot of scenarios that we face as leaders on all levels. I liken the phrase to our little group here. Our town of amazing women, have come together to make a place of motivation, understanding and encouragement for others. Maybe we’ve saved a few people from giving up? Maybe we’ve encouraged others to push forward? But we came together to make that happen. 

I’ve noticed something that we all need to get better at as a “town”.  Often in our state and national boards, you don’t see many faces from small centers. By small centers, I mean one or two seat PSAP’s. Many national policy groups are heavy with metro centers or large 911 industry partner companies. Small PSAP voices are few and far between.

These individuals that are making policy and best practices decisions based on what THEY know to be true. That’s not a bad thing, but people don’t know what they don’t know. They are making nationwide decisions based on their large-scale knowledge. I think most rural areas can attest that how things work in large 30, 40 or 50 seat centers are much different than how things work in a one seat dispatch center in a one stop light town. But we aren’t hearing from those rural folks. It seems that often the whole town isn’t present at the table to make important decisions on how our profession moves forward as a whole.

Larger centers and industry partners often don’t have the likelihood of a personal investment in the job as smaller PSAP’s do. By not knowing or being involved with a caller, it’s easy for the job to take a more transactional approach.  Small centers don’t always have that luxury. Many large centers don’t have to think about what it’s like to only have one officer to send to a disturbance with a gun or the fact that maybe the one officer you have is your husband. They don’t have to consider what it’s like to take a call from their third-grade teacher who has passed out, suddenly she stops breathing and now she’s passed away on the phone. The horrifying stressful feeling that sits at the pit of your stomach as you send your dad, uncle, brother, husband and two sons to a fully engulfed building fire, because they are all on the volunteer fire department. In a rural center, something awful could happen and you must stay, because there is no one else to come and help you.

Rural centers, at least where I am from, are most often run by a Sheriff. Often employee assistance programs are limited, and training is nonexistent because of staffing constraints. When you have three people and three shifts to cover, there’s no time to send someone to learn.  Money is tight. You are wearing uniform shirts from a dozen years ago because there’s no budget to buy anymore. 

Understanding the impacts of limited training, poor peer support, minimal or nonexistent mental health support and the effects of being a known member of the community is a valuable perspective that we must consider. During this unprecedented time of change in our profession, we must bring our rural voices to the table. COVID, reclassification efforts, the future of policing, mental health and wellness initiatives, will all impact us differently.

I think it’s also important to be honest in the fact that as a small center the threat of consolidation is very real. City and county commissions and state governments are always looking for ways to run more efficiently and at a more cost-effective pace. Each year, the cost of keeping a small center open only grows. Rural PSAPs must continue to position themselves within the state and national conversations to show why rural centers are vital to community health, before their center is swallowed up by larger organization. I’ve seen this happen. I’ve been that larger center and the community loses when they gain a PSAP that isn’t local to the area. 

It’s also important as a “town” that we remember that change isn’t a one size fits all approach. If we move in that direction as a PSAP, a region, a state or as a nation, many centers will be left behind. These centers desperately want someone, anyone to advocate for them. Making change in our profession must be tailored to fit all sizes and needs. We need to hear from our rural voices to understand the whole scope of each of our major problems. One cannot decide for all. The whole town must come together to make things happen.

Rural dispatchers, administrator’s, leaders, badasses… your voices matter. Advocate for yourself with your leadership. Go to your Sheriffs, your Chiefs or whoever will listen to you and say, “Here’s why being a part of this board, or that committee is important for our PSAP.”  Do whatever you can to get involved. Find a working group with NENA or APCO and volunteer to help. Look for scholarships to fund getting your ENP, RPL or CPE designation. You can do it from the frontline. Be the boots on the ground voices that these committees and boards NEED TO HEAR. Don’t wait for your own seat at the table, bring a folding chair and demand to be heard.  

Nobody should be left behind during this pivotal time. I hope all rural centers rise up and make their voices heard, so we can finally say “the whole town came together to make this happen.”

Wouldn’t it be a glorious way to move our profession ahead?

Thank you, Roxy for sharing your valuable perspective! If you are interested in writing a blog, please email 911derWomen@gmail.com. Sign up for our newsletter on our homepage to stay up to date with 911der Women programming, exclusive content and blog updates. Click here and scroll to the bottom!