April 14-20 is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, or as we like to call it, Dispatch Week. It is one week out of the year that we honor dispatchers for their commitment, service, and sacrifice. We celebrate those past and present who have served our communities, citizens, and public safety personnel 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This year, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our dispatchers with a little public recognition.
Grand County Sheriff’s Office takes great pride in hiring and training dispatch candidates. Our training program consists of 12-16 weeks of in-house training that includes: five policy and procedures, call-taking, radio communications, jail functions, record management, and geography. Trainees are also expected to pass five FEMA courses, become CPR certified, and take a 24-hour Emergency Medical Dispatch course. Once the curriculum is satisfactorily completed, each dispatcher must take a 40-hour POST dispatch course. By the time it is all said and done, it takes approximately eight months before a dispatcher is fully certified! Once trained a dispatcher may take a variety of calls from routine VIN inspections and parking problems to more complex calls like traffic accidents, in-progress, and search and rescue calls. They never know what will be on the other end of the line, but they have to be ready to deal with anything.
It takes a special kind of person to be a dispatcher. They have to be patient, but firm, know when to take charge, but also know when to just listen. They have to be able to hyper-task and prioritize, be organized and proficient, and they have to really care about the work they are doing. It is not an easy job, often thankless. They often will not know the outcome of the call that they send officers, firefighters, and ambulances to. Sometimes the call hits close to home but they have to be able to emotionally distance themselves from it. Many times they don’t get an opportunity to mentally or emotionally process one call before they have to move on to the next, but they do it because they love their community and their first responders.
I am proud to be counted among the amazing people that serve our great community in this capacity and I am so proud of the team of dispatchers that we have. They constantly strive to go above and beyond to keep Grand County safe and to serve all of our terrific first responders.
To all Grand County dispatchers past and present, and to all dispatchers everywhere –
Happy Dispatch Week! Thank you for all that you do!
Jenny Swenson
Dispatch Supervisor
Grand County Sheriff’s Office
