PPA launches LGBT sensitivity training

The Philadelphia Parking Authority announced this week that it has launched LGBT sensitivity training for all of its employees.

PPA has hired Dr. David Hall, author and diversity trainer, to conduct the sessions.

Hall has already led 14 trainings at PPA and will train everyone from top-tier management to lower-level employees.

The training comes after an incident this summer in which a PPA officer allegedly made antigay remarks to a gay couple.

“We had a shortcoming here because we did no LGBT education at all,” said PPA executive director Vince Fenerty. “This fell squarely on my shoulders and on my staff’s shoulders that we missed this type of training. When you’re here for a long time and have a diversified staff who gets along, you don’t realize that one of your subordinates on the street may not have the same experience that you do. And my job, as director of the Parking Authority, is to make sure that our employees are trained to act professionally.”

Hall, who has trained staff at such organizations as Merck, the U.S. Department of Energy and JP Morgan Chase, said that, through the initial trainings, he was surprised to learn of the pressures that some parking enforcement officers face, including at least five who told him they’ve been spit on by members of the public.

However, he said, they all need to be prepared to respond to hostile situations without any animus, including toward LGBT customers.

“Regardless of that treatment, while it may be unfair, everyone agrees that when you turn the corner and encounter another citizen, bias and harassing language cannot be used,” Hall said. “There’s no place for it in a professional setting or in a civilized, caring society.”

Hall said his trainings are designed to educate staffers on the wide-ranging impact of homophobic language on the individual to whom it is directed, as well as on the general public, and also to raise their awareness about their agency’s harassment and nondiscrimination policies and procedures.

The training will cost PPA $24,000, and Hall will be brought back to retrain new groups of employees as they’re brought on.

Fenerty said PPA has not decided if it will institute re-training.

In addition to the new LGBT training, PPA also announced the results of a study of officers’ on-the-street attitudes and behaviors.

Over the summer, the agency brought in an external firm to conduct an employee audit, with 123 parking enforcement officers being met by undercover operatives.

The individuals posed as hostile PPA customers, using disparaging and abusive language toward the parking enforcement officers on the street.

Of the 155 contacts that were made, the firm categorized seven of them as negative and six as cautionary, while the remaining 142 were considered positive.

“Our board members and staff kept getting complaints that our parking enforcement officers weren’t trained well enough or were ignorant,” Fenerty said. “I believe we have very good, very well-trained employees for the most part, but we wanted to do this to see if any of our employees did need some improvement. There were many, many extraordinary interactions which, when I read them, I was very proud. But I was disappointed in some with their interactions.”

None of the interactions involved any LGBT issues.

PPA staff will be briefed on the study this week, and the officers whose behavior was deemed negative or cautionary will receive additional training on how to handle on-the-street hostile situations.

Fenerty said many officers did not fully understand the procedure for contesting a ticket, and in the coming weeks all parking enforcement officers will be retrained on that process.

Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].

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