Telling Isn't Training: Inside CommsCoach EDU

How the GovWorx education team built CommsCoach EDU to turn instruction into real, lasting skill for telecommunicators and 9-1-1 leaders.

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Ask anyone who has worked the floor, and they can tell you the difference between being told how to do something and actually knowing how to do it. One happens in a classroom. The other gets built through practice, feedback, and repetition until the skill holds up on a live call.

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That difference sits at the heart of the latest episode of Level Up with Tipi. Host Tipi Brookins sits down with three members of the GovWorx education team: Lori Henricksen, Vice President of 9-1-1 Education; Halcyon Frank, Director of 9-1-1 Education; and Michael Mollo, Manager of Applied 9-1-1 Education. Together they share the thinking behind CommsCoach EDU and why professional development in 9-1-1 should continue for an entire career, not just at hiring and promotion.

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Confidence Is Built Through Education

Agencies want to invest in their people. The challenge is finding the time, staffing, and budget to do it. In many centers, training is concentrated at two points: when someone is first hired and when they prepare for promotion. Everything in between often comes down to required annual hours and whatever fits around the schedule.

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Lori sees a direct line between that gap and retention. "Part of our retention problem is we have some really, really good people who left because they weren't confident in their decisions," she explains. "Confidence is built by education."

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When telecommunicators have the right tools in their tool belt, even difficult calls and hard outcomes become easier to work through, because they know they did everything they could. CommsCoach EDU was created to close gaps in communication, decision making, leadership, and documentation, and to make professional development available throughout a person's whole career.

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Because every person in the center has access, agencies never have to decide who gets a seat. Training can be assigned when it's most relevant and revisited whenever reinforcement is needed, across onboarding, continuing education, coaching, remediation, and leadership development.

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Telling Isn't Training

Halcyon names one of the most common gaps in the industry: confusing telling with training. "We can tell somebody how to do something, we can tell them the steps to take, but that doesn't mean that they're actually going to learn it, understand it, be able to apply it," she says.

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That's why every CommsCoach EDU series is built on a four-step learning model:

1. Content builds the foundational knowledge.
2. Practice gives learners hands-on opportunities to apply what they've learned.
3. Evaluation delivers feedback as learners move through modules, simulations, and activities.
4. Validation confirms the skill holds up, both in simulations and on the floor with a trainer. 

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The goal isn't simply to check whether someone can repeat the steps they were shown. It's to confirm they understand the material and have developed the skill to succeed on a live call. As Lori puts it, there's a real difference between sitting in a class and listening and actually demonstrating what you've learned.

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Inside the CommsCoach EDU Series

Michael walks through what learners can expect, and the common thread is that every piece connects. Each series pairs learning modules and videos with activities, short assessments, and simulations tied directly to the material, so the content tells one cohesive story.

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Series, Availability & What’s Inside

Supervisor Series 

• Available now (45 hours)
• Leadership modules, two-hour intensives, conversational simulations with tailored valuation templates, progress tracking, and certificates

Call-Taking Fundamentals

• Available now (16 hours)
• Modules paired with activities such as interpreting ANI/ALI data, analyzing caller statements, and spotting mistakes, plus call-taking, conversational, and reflection-based simulations

Swatting: Listening Beyond the Call

• Coming soon
• A learning module, new simulations built specifically for this series, and a final assessment

Documentation Mastery 

• Coming soon 
• A focused series on clear, accurate documentation

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The reflection-based simulations in Call-Taking Fundamentals are especially unique. They ask learners to think back on a module and speak to what they took from it, building the kind of critical thinking that rarely gets practiced in a traditional classroom.

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New series join the library every quarter, and curriculum already assigned to a team stays available, so the library keeps growing alongside the people using it.

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Practicing the Conversations Supervisors Used to Learn the Hard Way

When Tipi asked the panel how they were developed as new supervisors, the answers were familiar. "Absolutely nothing," Lori said. Strong call takers do well on their oral boards, get promoted, and are suddenly expected to supervise their peers and lead difficult conversations without ever being trained to do it. 

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Michael remembers the same experience. "If I made a mistake, that's when I got corrected, and that's how I learned." As Tipi noted, those centers did the best they could with what was available at the time. Today , there's a better option.

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Conversational simulations give supervisors a safe place to practice before the stakes are real. Each simulation assigns a role and a goal, such as a telecommunicator who is upsetv about being forced in for overtime. The language is built to reflect that scenario, including signs of escalation, so the learner can practice de-escalating while applying their own agency's policies and procedures. Every simulation connects to a specific competency and a tailored evaluation.

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"I can practice in a controlled environment and learn from those mistakes," Michael says. "When I'm actually in that role and I can talk to somebody about somebody calling out, I have something to draw back on." Over the long term, he believes that preparation will build center culture in a positive way. Lori adds that these skills aren't only for people with a supervisor title. Informal leaders exist on every shift, and the Supervisor Series supports them in the work they already do every day.

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Measuring Growth Across the Whole Career

For Halcyon, measurement is what makes progress visible. "How do we know if we improved? If we never measure anything, if we don't know where we started, how do we know that we got anywhere?" Clear measurement helps agencies understand the return on their training investment. Just as importantly, it lets individuals see their own growth and take pride in it, and a more confident team makes for a stronger center.

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That measurement extends to continuing education. Learners who complete eligible EDU activities earn CommsCoach Credits, and many modules include downloadable certificates documenting their hours. Agencies can follow progress in TRAIN alongside other training and development activities, so supervisors have a clear picture of what each person has completed and where more development may help. Requirements vary by state and certifying organization, so agencies should confirm their specific needs, but

EDU provides the completion records to support whatever process they use. 

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EDU also connects to the rest of the CommsCoach ECC Performance Platform across the employee lifecycle:

• Call-Taking Fundamentals + HIRE. The series develops the competencies assessed in the call-taking segment of the HIRE pre-hire assessment, helping new hires build on what their scores reveal.
• Supervisor Series + PROMOTE. The series develops the leadership competencies measured by PROMOTE.

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Halcyon points out that PROMOTE isn't only for agencies with an open position. Smaller centers may rarely have supervisor openings, but they can still use PROMOTE to see where people stand and the Supervisor Series to help them grow. When an opportunity does come along, those employees are ready, and they know their agency invested in them.

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All of it is grounded in APCO and NENA best practices, industry standards, and the team's own experience across centers of different sizes and in different states. Each series also stands on its own, so agencies can use the curriculum with or without CommsCoach assessments.

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Start Small, Be Intentional, Build a Rhythm

To close the conversation, Tipi asked Lori the question every ECC director and training manager is thinking: what's the fastest way to bring EDU into a team's routine without disrupting critical shift coverage?

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The good news is there's no onboarding. All curriculum is available to assign from day one. Lori's advice is to start small, be intentional, and focus on consistency:

• Pick one series that addresses a current need in your center.
• Fit it into routines you already have, such as in-shift training, briefings, double squad days, monthly development time, supervisor meetings, or one-on-one coaching.
• Assign by role, experience level, or development need, and let supervisors reinforce the learning through discussion, coaching, and simulation practice.
• Set a realistic completion schedule and use tracking and evaluation tools to see how learning translates into performance.

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Because training is available on demand, no one has to attend at the same time, and no shift has to come off the floor. "This allows even somebody on graveyard shift to be able to access training and get the same opportunities that somebody on day shift Monday through Friday would normally get," Lori says.

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And for the "high flyers" who always want more, new content arrives every quarter, so there's always another opportunity to grow. 

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Watch the Full Episode

This conversation is a reminder that the best training doesn't end at the academy or wait for a promotion. It meets people where they are and keeps helping them grow, on every shift and at every stage of their career.

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Watch the full episode of Level Up with Tipi to hear Lori, Halcyon, and Michael share more about how CommsCoach EDU is helping agencies develop confident telecommunicators and leaders. Then explore the series and see how your center can bring continuous education to the entire team.

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