Protect Our Families: Why Childcare is a Public-Safety Issue

By Special Guest Writer

Gianna Gatto, RPL

Customer Success Manager, Smart Response Technologies

If you’ve been in the public-safety communications world for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard the acronym “RPL” thrown around at conferences or seen it listed after someone’s name. But if you’re not familiar with what it actually means or what it takes to earn it, here’s the short version: the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Registered Public-Safety Leader (RPL) program is a year-long professional development course designed for experienced telecommunicators who are ready to grow as leaders. It’s not a passive program. It’s structured, rigorous, and built around real application, not just theory.

The centerpiece of the RPL curriculum is a service project… a self-directed, months-long initiative where each participant identifies a genuine need within their agency or the broader public-safety community and works to actually address it. This isn’t a paper exercise. You’re expected to research, build relationships, collect data, pilot solutions, and document outcomes. The service project is the capstone that ties everything together, and it’s also where you find out what kind of leader you really are.

When I was promoted to supervisor, completing the RPL was a requirement that came with the role. Honestly? I’m grateful it was. What started as a professional obligation quickly became one of the most meaningful experiences of my career. The RPL program didn’t just check a box; it challenged me to think differently about leadership, about my team, and about the kind of impact I actually wanted to have. The service project, in particular, pushed me further than I expected.

I don’t have kids. I want to make that clear upfront—because it matters to understanding why I chose this project.

When I was developing my service project for APCO's RPL Program, I could have picked something that affected me directly. I could have focused on scheduling, training pipelines, or any number of operational challenges I’d personally experienced as a night shift 9-1-1 Dispatch Supervisor for the City of Alexandria, VA. But the more I sat with my team, the more I heard the same theme in passing conversations, leave requests, and shift adjustments: childcare.

Not my problem. But absolutely my responsibility as a leader.

The Problem No One Wants to Name

Public-safety communications is a 24/7 operation. That’s not a new concept—everyone who enters this field knows it. What doesn’t get talked about enough is what that reality means for parents on your team.

Most childcare providers operate on a 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. model. Maybe 7 p.m. if you’re lucky. That works great if you’re a 9-to-5 professional. It does nothing for the telecommunicator who clocks in at midnight, the supervisor rotating between days and nights, or the dispatcher who just got mandated for a double.

The gap between when Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) need their people and when childcare is available isn’t a minor inconvenience—it’s a structural problem that hits retention, attendance, and morale in very real ways. And yet it rarely makes it onto leadership’s agenda, because it feels personal. It feels like someone’s family situation, not an organizational issue.

Spoiler: it’s both.

What the Data Actually Showed

My project began not with a solution, but with listening. Over the first few months, I documented staffing patterns, tracked informal feedback, and developed a confidential needs assessment survey distributed to first-responders across shifts. The data confirmed what I’d suspected from observation alone.

Personnel working night shifts, rotating schedules, and extended hours were disproportionately affected. They identified the following top barriers: limited provider hours, lack of emergency backup care options, reliability issues, cost, and geographic access. These weren’t complaints—they were data points that painted a clear operational picture.

What struck me most wasn’t the volume of the response—it was the consistency. Across roles, shifts, and years of experience, the same barriers kept surfacing. This wasn’t a problem isolated to a handful of people. It was woven into the fabric of working in public-safety communications.

Building Something That Could Actually Work

Armed with that data, I moved into research and outreach—exploring extended-hours childcare providers, benchmarking how other large shift-based employers approach the issue, and eventually developing a pilot program proposal centered on an extended-hours childcare provider partnership model.

The approach was intentionally modest. Rather than over-promising, the pilot was scoped to be manageable, measurable, and honest about its limitations. It defined eligibility criteria, established success metrics tied to attendance and stress reduction, and identified risks upfront—including the reality that funding and sustainability are genuinely hard problems.

That grounded-ness mattered. One of the most memorable responses I received during the research phase came from a contact at Virginia Department of Emergency Management, who shared that a similar initiative in Chesterfield County had stalled early over liability insurance costs. It was a reminder that good intentions aren’t enough—sustainable solutions require realistic planning. I took that feedback seriously and built it into the framework.

I also had a promising conversation about a potential space within the Alexandria Police Headquarters—an example of the kind of cross-agency collaboration that this issue requires if it’s ever going to move from pilot to permanent.

What the Pilot Taught Us

By the end of the twelve-month project, the results were meaningful—not transformational on a grand scale, but meaningful in the ways that matter. Participants reported reduced childcare-related stress. Attendance reliability improved. People felt like someone had actually seen the problem.

That last part might sound soft, but don’t underestimate it. In a field where burnout and attrition are chronic, the act of an agency saying, “We see you, and we’re trying to help”, is not nothing. It’s culture. And culture is retention.

The pilot also revealed what didn’t work: communication gaps around enrollment timelines, coordination friction with providers, and the ever-present question of long-term funding. Those aren’t reasons to give up on the model—they’re the lessons that make the next iteration better.

Why This Matters Beyond Alexandria

I designed this project to be adaptable—not a one-size-fits-all solution, but a replicable process. The framework is simple: start with honest data collection, validate the need, engage external partners thoughtfully, pilot responsibly, and evaluate before scaling. Any PSAP can do this regardless of size or budget.

If you’re a supervisor or agency leader reading this, I’d ask you one question: when did you last talk to your night shift about childcare? Not in a survey—just talk to them? You might be surprised what you hear.

We ask a lot of our telecommunicators. We ask them to be present, sharp, calm, and reliable—at 3 a.m., on their fifth mandatory overtime shift, with a child at home they couldn’t find reliable care for. The least we can do is take that seriously.

Servant Leadership Isn't About You

I came back to the same realization throughout this project: the best leadership work you’ll ever do is for people; it doesn’t personally affect you. Not because it makes you noble—but because it forces you to actually listen instead of project.

I don’t have kids. This initiative would not benefit me in any direct way. But it would benefit people I worked alongside every night—people who showed up and gave everything they had to a job that demands exactly that. That was reason enough.

If your agency is considering a similar initiative, I’m happy to share the framework, the survey instrument, or lessons learned from the pilot. Childcare shouldn’t be a barrier to public-safety. And it doesn’t have to be.

About the Author:

Gianna Gatto, RPL, is a Customer Success Manager at Smart Response Technologies (SRT), a public-safety technology company dedicated to improving communication and situational awareness for 9-1-1 centers nationwide. She joined SRT in January 2026 following nearly four years as a night-shift 9-1-1 Dispatch Supervisor for the City of Alexandria, Virginia, where she developed deep expertise in PSAP operations, training, scheduling, and workforce leadership. Prior to her career in public-safety communications, Gianna served as a volunteer firefighter and EMT on Long Island, New York, an experience that grounded her understanding of emergency services from the field up and continues to shape her perspective on the people who make public-safety work. Gianna is an active member of APCO International and is passionate about advancing workforce wellness, retention, and leadership development within the public-safety communications industry.

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