So many of the groups and institutions that we have worked with feel like they are ready for any event that they may experience - they have trained, written plans, run exercises, and trained some more.

But the one area that we see as lacking time and again is planning for consequence management. The plans that many have written tend to be tactical in nature. The 'full scale active shooter' exercise tends to be a LE based functional that works on clearing schools and Fire/EMS responding to casualties - but most educational plans are missing the consequence management piece - looking at the information gathering and sharing, dealing with social media, finding resources both in the immediate and more long term to address what is happening.

We talk today about looking more at the big picture, and the support of incident response, as opposed to the incident itself.

Whole Community -

What is it and why does it matter?

Understanding our audience, or customers is vital in being sable to provide a service to them. Whether that service is community safety and protection, EMS, or LE, we need to know our base and how best to communicate with them. This could mean anything from understanding that we need to communicate differently with different groups (Gen X/Y vs. our parents) through different methods, to knowing our communities that we serve and how they may view events differently.

With the advent of instant news cycles and people demanding information now - how best can we understand what it is they are looking for, and how we can give it to them...

A.I.

Good or bad?

As technology and AI begins to creep into all segments of everyday activities, have you welcomed it? Or do you avoid it the best that you can?

In Part 1 of this two part episode, we look at how AI and technology effects what we do as emergency responders and some of the challenges that we have encountered.

We are joined by Wes Jones, a long time emergency manager and 911 Center Director, who is now with a new company that is embracing some of this technology. Episode 2 will look at how this is being done, and how AI is helping 911 Centers across the country...

Continuing the Episode 5 discussion on technological advances, and more specifically A.I., we are talking with Wes Jones of Aurelian and the products that they have developed to support the work of PSAP's and dispatch centers.

Aurelian has developed technology solutions that help support telecommunicators and assist with information gathering. Aurelian's solution integrate within current workflows to seamlessly support operations and staff.

Wes is a public safety professional with over 30 years of experience spanning emergency communications, emergency management and public-private collaboration. He spent more than 25 years in New York State in 9-1-1 and emergency management roles, including 12 years as a 9-1-1 center director, where he was responsible for operations, staffing, technology and service delivery in high-pressure, mission-critical environments.

Wes currently serves as Public Safety Engagement Lead at Aurelian, where he works closely with emergency communications leaders to apply conversational AI in ways that support 9-1-1 professionals, reduce non-emergency call burden and strengthen emergency response. His approach is grounded in firsthand operational experience and a deep respect for the realities of public safety work.

In honor of Memorial Day, and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice, we look at the importance of realizing the stress that comes hand in hand with working, or loving someone that works, in emergency services. Understanding the stresses of the job, both mental and physical, and the effects that they have on both responder health and safety, as well as their relationships with families and loved ones is a part of the job that not enough of us are talking about.

Come listen as we set the stage for discussions over the next several episodes of what we can do to help protect ourselves and be at our best for the entirety of our careers.. and beyond.

Tonight, we continue the discussion of responder self care and well being with a discussion of some of the effects of the bad crap we do and what it does to our bodies...

While more specific to firefighting due to the extremes that we face, the nutritional aspects also effect long-term, high stress environments such as disaster response withing emergency management, sleep deprivation due to rotating schedules or emergency call-outs and long term well being.

By understanding some of the physical stressors, as well as the psychological aspect we introduced last episode, we can start to understand what we are putting our bodies and minds through, and start to better prepare ourselves before the 'tones drop'

As we finish up our conversation on mental and physical well being - we shift the focus to who should be monitoring our moods and our emotional health? Who knows us best, and sees us at our worst? We need to track each other, and we need to depend on and rely on our brothers...

We then talk about a post made by the wife of a LEO, and the emotions that they experience every time their loved one walks out the door. While it may be LE geared, it should be an eye opener for anyone of us in emergency services and emergency management as to what our families, partners and friends are seeing and feeling as they watch us coping with the stresses of the job.