The Charlottesville-UVA-Albemarle County Emergency Communications Center was recently re-accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies in conjunction with the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials Inc.
This is the fourth Public Safety Emergency Communications Accreditation award for the ECC since they received their initial accreditation award in 2006. The ECC has worked continuously over the years to improve their service to the responder agencies and the citizens of the community. There are currently only seven (7) nationally accredited emergency communications centers within the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In order to keep this distinction the center must consistently meet or exceed 213 national standards covering 7 different categories. Those categories include Organization, Direction & Authority, Human Resources, Recruitment & Selection, Training, Operations and Emergency Operations.
Underscoring the agency’s commitment to excellence is its vision statement: “The Charlottesville-UVA-Albemarle County Emergency Communications Center will be a recognized leader in Public Safety Communications.”
Executive Director Tom Hanson credited the ECC staff for their success and said they are the reason we are able to meet our vision of being leaders in Public Safety Communications. “The accreditation process gives us additional credibility in the eyes of our responders, partnering agencies and citizens that we serve.”
The center will be required to go through the re-accreditation process again in 2019.
The Regional Emergency Communications Center was established in 1984 as a joint operation between the City, University and County and last year processed over 250,000 telephone calls and dispatched about 148,781 police, fire and rescue incidents.
The ECC serves as the only Public Safety Answering Point for the three jurisdictions. The ECC is governed by a 10 member management board made up of representatives from the three jurisdictions.