New to 911 Dispatch, looking for advice.

[greatestescapes]

First and foremost, hello! =)

I recently started working 911 dispatch, although as just a call taker, as from what I understand in my town (and I can imagine just about any town), things get really hectic when the weather gets warm. Therefore, they're not training me to dispatch until after summer. I'll just be taking calls.

That having been said, I'm apparently doing miserably. We're graded from 1-7 in different fields, from CAD (i'm not sure if that's the generally used program for dispatch, or if it's just what we use) to interviewing, the latter being my biggest problem.

I'm never nervous going into work, and I'm never nervous when I answer a call, being it the line for the police, where a citizen would call to ask things ranging from where their car got towed, to officers looking to be transfered to whatever extension they require. I also don't lock up when I answer 911, however, whenever I make a mistake, my supervisor definitely lets me know, and is not polite about it at all. And with good reason, hell, people's lives could potentially be at stake. I know very well that I deserve all the criticism given, and then some. This is, of course, where things begin to snowball. I get so nervous that I won't please my supervisor, and then the next thing I know, I'm making stupid mistakes, such as not asking for descriptions of possible offenders or wrong-doers. Before you go off on me, believe me, I know, it's a horrible thing to forget.

This is the very reason I love the job - I feel like I'm doing something important. Being only 20 years old, the money is also fantastic as compared so alot of the other things my peers are doing to pay their bills.

My question is - Any advice? While I know it's hard to go into detail without giving a synopsis for every type of call under the sun, I was just wondering if there was any GENERAL advice any dispatcher could give me that would up my game in terms of answering calls, being helpful and finding out the information from citizens who need help.

I absolutely love not only being able to say that I'm a dispatcher for my town's police station, as it gets me alot of "oo's" and "ah's", but what I love most is that it pays the bills, and I absolutely love that I feel I'm doing something genuinely worth while and rewarding.

I'd prefer not to lose my job, obviously. However, I feel that if I don't step my game up, I will.

My second question, how long does training usually take? For example, how long did it take some of you guys to go from being a trainee to being able to be on your own, taking calls without supervision and somebody else on the line with you? My supervisor tells me it took her 3 days, and that just blows my mind. I cannot imagine anybody learning the job that quickly.

Thanks in advance, and god bless all of you.

[Samuel]

Sounds like either your supervisor forgot where she came from or you're being overly sensitive to constructive criticism - hard to say since I'm not there. 3 days sounds farfetched to me.

I would suggest taking criticism/feedback to heart. Realize you're going to make mistakes - just try not to repeat them. (!!) If you make a mistake, don't dwell on it - learn from it. If you get frustrated/stressed, find an outlet so that you can start each day fresh.

If you can schedule a few ridealongs with senior LEOs (e.g. training officers, etc), you may be able to get a better perspective of what we face on the other end of the call. Having an idea of how we do things, what we need, what we're looking for, etc, can help you do your job better...

[Piggy]

Here's what I think makes a good dispatcher. Anticipate everything that will happen as best you can.

This obviously depends on your dispatch center and rules.

Here's what I mean:

If an Officer calls out a traffic stop, run the plate. If you can get the info to run the registered owner, run the registered owner.

If a pursuit is heading to another jurisdiction, don't wait until they already arrived, call when they're heading that way well before they get there. The other agency will appreciate the heads up.

If an Officer makes an arrest and you can give him the paperwork, have it ready, highlight anything important, clip it together. If an arrest is made, the Officer will probably need a criminal history, try to do it ahead of time.

If you dispatch an Officer to a house, see if you can find info about the house, for example previous calls, especially where weapons were involved, let him know ahead of time.

When you get a call to someones house, don't just get the address. Get a description of the house, cars in the driveway and a call back number. Houses aren't always marked and it'll help the Officer out a ton.

If an Officer is out on a stop, and you don't hear something within a few minutes, check on him.

When I dispatched, I'd hear my co-workers complain that we aren't the Officers secretaries. They were right, we're not. But we sure as hell need to do whatever we can to make both of our jobs easier. I don't think some of them understood the whole concept of working together.

[oscarmitre]

Is your supervisor being specific about what's allegedly deficient about your performance? If not, then ask for specifics. If you don't know what's apparently not being done then you won't be able to correct it.

As for training. At our emergency call centre calltakers and dispatchers are all police officers. Even given that their training takes four weeks of 40 hours and that includes time on the floor taking calls at first and then dispatching - all under direct supervision (buddy system training). Even then, with their police experience and their very good training (and it is) they still make mistakes. Time and experience helps make them good operators.

Don't lose heart, it's not an easy job. Best of luck with your attempts to resolve this - the previous (and doubt following) constructive advice helps I hope. I can't add anything more.

[greatestescapes]

Generally, she'll criticize me for not taking information down properly. I also remember an occasion in which we got a call from a residence and we had the adress in the Ali, and I was yelled at for not pressing the "get adress" button. It's worth noting that I type at 156 words per minute with errors.

Her biggest problem, she tells me, is that my interviewing skills aren't good enough. However when I ask her what I can do specifically to perform better at my job, be it during taking information down from a call or anything else, she simply tells me "some people can do this job and some people can't. I'm not sure what to tell you other than listening to what goes on around you". This of course frusterates me, because I REALLY want to do this job. I love doing it so much.

Thanks for the advice everybody, and if anybody has any more regardless of how harsh it may sound, I'd be really grateful

[MDEMT280]

Our dispatch center had these giant books at every calltaker station with sheets for every incident type. If a call came in, you could flip to the relevant page -- "Robbery, just occurred" for example -- and find the quick and dirty of what needed to be asked, and in a priorty order.

1. Address of offense
2. Number of suspects
3. Description of suspects
4. Direction of travel...

etc., etc., etc.

It's kinda like EMD, but for police and fire incidents.

If you don't have such a resource, you may want to consider making one up with the assistance of some senior dispatchers. That should help with your information gathering and making sure you have everything you need. Just don't make it so unwieldy and don't rely on it so heavily that you wind up saying, "911, please hold while I flip through the book to find your call..." ;)

And, like Oscar said, time and experience helps. We had several months of classroom and scenario-based training, then more time on the floor with a trainer doing OJT before we were cut loose. And guess what, I was still making mistakes once I got cut loose. Just give it time.

[greatestescapes]

Yeah, I never had any classroom training. My dispatch center is a small company providing the service to my town, so, I suppose it's not required? Or maybe it's just not required in IL. I'm not sure, but regardless, I was offered the job via my town's precinct captain who's good friends with my family and lives down the block. I of course jumped at the opportunity, and was basically thrown head-first into the fray.

So, I'm basically learning EVERYTHING from first-hand experience. I kind of wish I did take a class, because I think it would have helped me and prepared me alot better than just jumping right in.

[TacDispatch]

Is your supervisor also acting as your FTO (Field Training Officer)? You should be getting daily evaluations with extensive notes about each element of the job. If your agency isn't providing an academy to familiarize you with CAD, geography, call types, etc., then in order to succeed, you will have to build this foundation yourself.

Print the notes from the calls you take and evaluate yourself. What else could you have asked? What other information could you have gathered? Are your call notes written in a clear, concise, easy to follow way?

Make a list of all of your CAD event types (Abandoned veh, robbery, theft, etc). Then ask your supervisor/trainer or another experienced dispatcher to tell you what questions are pertinent for each event type. Study this ad nauseum.

Ride along with patrol as much as you can, even if you have to come in on your off time. Being a successful police dispatcher is dependent upon understanding "the big picture" of police work. You MUST learn what your officers need and why they need it. You must learn why they need suspect information, direction of travel, RP contact information, etc. You must learn why it's important to obtain dates of birth, license plates, address histories, weapons information, etc. The name of the game is officer safety - it is THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF YOUR JOB. Customer service is secondary.

That being said, since you'll be focusing on call taking for the time being, I'll talk a little about that. You will be talking to people during the single most horrible moments of their lives. You will also be the only impression many people get of your police department. You must be professional and compassionate on the phone. Even if you can't help someone - if there is no reason for them to "get a cop," you can still leave them with the feeling that their call was important.

You are going to be called the most horrendous names in the book. You will be screamed at, cursed at, hung up on. You will be responsible for gently, effectively, quickly squeezing information out of the hysterical convenience store clerk who's just been robbed at gunpoint. You will be the first person to question the woman who has just been raped. You will be the voice in the ear of the suicidal man with a gun in his hand. Can you handle that? Your supervisor was right that not everyone can do this job. It's quite true that you either "can do it or you can't." It's not just about surviving those types of traumatic phone calls - you must effectively help these people while keeping your officers safe at all times.

These points should be your mantra:

1) Control the call. Control the caller. Do not let your caller reach their "hysteria threshold" - the point at which they are too upset, too hysterical, to talk to you at all. How do you do this? Maintain an even, calm, professional tone in your voice at all times. In certain situations you may have to raise your voice to get the callers attention - by the same token, lowering your voice so that the caller must quiet down in order to hear you works equally well. Ask your caller specific questions that require them to think about the answers. For instance, always, always confirm your ANI/ALI information. But don't just read it back to them and ask if it's correct. Make them focus on answering your questions by asking them specifically what their address is, what their name is, what their phone number is.

Methodically take them through your questions: Where did this happen (the most important question)? When? By who? What did they look like? Where did they go? On foot? In a vehicle? Etc.

When they start to launch in to a long story, cut them off. Politely repeat your questions ("Ok, what's your address?") until they answer them. If they are uncooperative, tell them you need them to help you help them. Always try to get their names - it's easier to get a hysterical caller to focus on you if you can use their name.

And, 2) Consider officer safety above all else. If you can get very little from a caller, ask the pertinent officer safety questions first. You never, NEVER want to put your dispatcher in the position of sending officers into a situation where there may be hazards to them, if you can help it. Important officer safety questions are:

*How many suspects? Descriptions and directions of travel.
*Has anyone been drinking? Doing drugs? How much? What kinds?
*****Are there weapons?? What kind and where are they??*****
*History of arrests? Anti-police? Gang activity? Get names and dates of birth for all parties involved (ie both the victim and the suspect in a domestic violence incident)
*Does everyone onscene know the police were called? (A good one for family fights)


Obviously, there is much to learn. I suggest looking into some outside resources as well, such as PSTC and APCO - both offer wonderful training classes both in person and online. A Telecommunicator class would be a great foundation for you.

Good luck.

Edit: A good training program will take 4-9 MONTHS to complete. Each stage of the job is it's own training subcategory: calltaking, data channel (warrants, etc), main police radio channel, and so on.

[StationM]

I think Tac covered the basics, what I want to know is what is the training program like? Where you told up front how the training would play out? Where you given specific goals to meet during the process?

My agency has 3 weeks of classroom, then 5 weeks one-on-one - that's just for phones. You learn all the codes, basic crime elements and P&P for the agency.

Is your CAD set up with all the entry fields in order of questions asked? Do you have a special box for suspect/vehicle description?

We have a basic format for calls, with variations based on type of calls.

Time frame.....extension of call type....if they are gone, how they are gone, which way did they go....if they've been drinking//drugging//armed in any way.

All descriptions are in a supplemental field box with our format. For people, top to bottom//outside to inside. For vehicles it CYMBLS...color, year, make, body-type, license, state, then extra describers.

All text entries end with either NFD - no further details
or MTF - more to follow.

What I have found, is new call-takers "take dictation" as they learn to deal with callers. It takes time to "trim the fat" on their calls, because they still aren't sure what is important. Once you work radios, you get a better feel for the "meat" of a call.

Scripts are great for certain calls as a prompt for questioning.

[greatestescapes]

Our cad looks the same for every type of call. All the vehicle information, suspect description and etc goes into a bland field called "comments".

It's set up, basically, to look like this:

Address

Call type (code, for example Sig1 for an accident with no injuries)

Name of Caller, Callback number

Name of Business

Disposition


Comment Field








As for if I was told how training SHOULD go, and goals I should meet, I was told nothing of the sort. All I ever get, and I get lots of it, is "we've been training you for 2 weeks, Myself and (my supervisors colleague and what would appear to be BFFL) were trained and on our own in 3 days taking calls.

In fact, I feel that my agency is very unprofessional, after you guys have been talking about all the training you have received. I got no classroom time, no formal anything, besides the buddy-system type training that I'm recieving now. I hate to say this, but it's how I feel about it after hearing what all of you guys had to go through. I really wish I was afforded that kind of training. I feel I'd be much more prepared.


To be honest, I was never even told how to handle calls. I observed for one day, on the day shift which is of course our least busy shift. From there I was thrown on the phones and yelled at for every mistake made, whether it be not asking a question or asking questions that weren't important.


I know I sound bitter, and I'm not meaning to, it's just how things have gone for me. To be honest my training has been extremely unpleasant, but I like the job enough to tough it out and I'm really trying to. It's just hard, I'm literally scared to go to work. I get nervous at night and can't sleep, it's terrible.


Thanks so much for all the help guys, and if any of you have any more advice, please by all means... I'm all ears and then some. I'd really like to get through training and learn how to do this job, I know it's something I can do and would really enjoy doing.

[oscarmitre]

Generally, she'll criticize me for not taking information down properly. I also remember an occasion in which we got a call from a residence and we had the adress in the Ali, and I was yelled at for not pressing the "get adress" button. It's worth noting that I type at 156 words per minute with errors.

Her biggest problem, she tells me, is that my interviewing skills aren't good enough. However when I ask her what I can do specifically to perform better at my job, be it during taking information down from a call or anything else, she simply tells me "some people can do this job and some people can't. I'm not sure what to tell you other than listening to what goes on around you". This of course frusterates me, because I REALLY want to do this job. I love doing it so much.

Thanks for the advice everybody, and if anybody has any more regardless of how harsh it may sound, I'd be really grateful

I'm thinking your supervisor needs to learn how to do her job but that doesn't help you.

Getting information out of people in an emergency situation is difficult, it takes time to learn the skills. If you have a CAD system then you probably have a screen where you input the data? You can use that for a cue. One of the methods I saw our calltakers using when I worked as a supervisor there was the "broken record" approach. You just keep asking for the piece of information you need until you get it. And be firm, but not rude of course, with the caller, just keep asking for that critical information until you can get it into the system. That's one thing that comes to mind.

[MrJim911]

Going off what our saying, it sounds like your agency does not have a training program in place. They've stuck you with a person who obviously has no interest in doing a good job training a new hire and you'll suffer for it as will the citizens and officers you will be responsible for. When you were given this job, because it doesn't sound like you went through any kind of hiring process, which is sad... they didn't tell you what to expect? You didn't ask?

My advice would be to find a new job at an agency that puts effort into hiring and training qualified people.

[StationM]

My advice would be to find a new job at an agency that puts effort into hiring and training qualified people.

I agree. Even the smaller agencies here have more then 3 days training.

Your supervisor/trainer may have done it in 3 days, but they probably sucked at it for the first 3 months.

[WhiteLite]

Here's what I think makes a good dispatcher. Anticipate everything that will happen as best you can.

This obviously depends on your dispatch center and rules.

Here's what I mean:

If an Officer calls out a traffic stop, run the plate. If you can get the info to run the registered owner, run the registered owner.

If a pursuit is heading to another jurisdiction, don't wait until they already arrived, call when they're heading that way well before they get there. The other agency will appreciate the heads up.

If an Officer makes an arrest and you can give him the paperwork, have it ready, highlight anything important, clip it together. If an arrest is made, the Officer will probably need a criminal history, try to do it ahead of time.

If you dispatch an Officer to a house, see if you can find info about the house, for example previous calls, especially where weapons were involved, let him know ahead of time.

When you get a call to someones house, don't just get the address. Get a description of the house, cars in the driveway and a call back number. Houses aren't always marked and it'll help the Officer out a ton.

If an Officer is out on a stop, and you don't hear something within a few minutes, check on him.

When I dispatched, I'd hear my co-workers complain that we aren't the Officers secretaries. They were right, we're not. But we sure as hell need to do whatever we can to make both of our jobs easier. I don't think some of them understood the whole concept of working together.

I think most of the advice that should be given, has been. But I do have to point out, and I'm not sure how things differ in Ohio, but in TN, you can't run a criminal history unless specifically requested to do so by an officer, and it must be logged with a reason. Also, Curiosity queries are prohibited, i.e. running a drivers license just because the vehicle is registered to that person without being asked to run it. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, only that it's not supposed to here. Again, things may differ some by state agencies and their handling of NCIC.

That being said, just keep your head up and don't let them get ya down. This can be a very rewarding job, and it can be a very stressful job. It is what you make of it for the most part. The training program in my agency is written to be 12 weeks long. Most will complete that faster, some run the full length. 3 days isn't long enough to learn the CAD program here, much less be released on your own.

Hang in there. This job is a doorway to many other jobs, and regardless of whether you want to stay in the law enforcement field, having a good history in a public safety agency looks good to future employers.