National Public Educator Forum Conference in San Antonio is a Success for All!

Last week, the second annual 9-1-1 NPEF Conference took place in San Antonio. With nearly 80 attendees representing 15 different states including Mexico, this event was a testament to how valuable public education is to all of these participants. Throughout the four-day event, participants were able to gain insight on a variety of topics presented by peers within the public education industry. Public educators learned more about areas that they needed to improve upon or simply were not aware of, while other educators learned more about the value of partnering with presentations from NG9-1-1 Institute, NENA, and Smart911. A social media presentation at the conference greatly helped attendees get a better view of how to incorporate this technology into their daily outreach, while more traditional methods of media campaigns were explained by seasoned media production professionals. Lessons learned from the 2011 conference were also shared by several attendees that attended last year and 9-1-1 directors from Illinois, Louisiana and Texas presented their director’s vision for 9-1-1 outreach. Overall the conference was a great success and we look forward to attending in 2013!

Below are a few tips worth sharing from the conference:

-No matter what your public education budget, you can make a difference! Whether it be being creative with office supplies to branding yourself online for free through Facebook, blogging and Twitter.
-The use of a mascot makes a huge impact on public education. Not only does it create a character with an important message that kids gravitate towards, but it also makes getting your message out easier, educational and fun!
-A great public education tool is partnering with another organization or government entity for events as well as making the public aware of tools, products and services that are available to the community
-Remember- no task is too big to take on, as long as we are all willing to work together to make public education the best it can be!

For more ideas, tips or information on what was presented at the NPEF Conference contact Patti Davis at pdavis@wctcog.org or Robert Gonzalez at robert.gonzalez@csec.texas.gov. For more information on NPEF, visite www.npef.org.