International Control Room Week: Meet Jay
Main article content
As part of International Control Room Week, we'd like to introduce Jay who is a dispatcher in our call centre in Ripley.
Dispatchers are responsible for sending officers to incidents as they come in.
They have to prioritise jobs, find officers that are available to attend, and request support from additional teams when needed. They must ensure our officers are safe, and that includes assessing the level of risk involved in an incident, and sending the right resources to support.
Jay has worked for the force for four years now, and says his favourite thing about working in the Contact Management and Resolution Centre is the camaraderie between colleagues.
The team are responsible for every piece of contact that comes in to us, be it in the form of a phone call, social media message, or website form. The nature of some of these contacts can be distressing, and it is the team spirit that gets everyone through this.
Jay said: "If someone has to go so far as to ring 999 or 101, they must feel so vulnerable, so it's about recognising that everyone that rings us has got their own story, they are all vulnerable no matter how you look at it people who ring the police need us for something and we have an expectation to live up to their expectations."
Watch his interview above.