By Meghan Malloy
Kennebec Journal
VASSALBORO, Maine — The caller was frantic. A masked man had just stolen her car from the driveway. A calm dispatcher asked her for a description of her vehicle and the weapons the alleged carjacker was carrying.
Though the call was real, local police weren’t sent to the scene with sirens wailing and blaring. The call happened in another part of the country and was being used as an example of appropriate dispatcher behavior during a new emergency communications training course that started Monday at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.
The standardized training program was mandated in 2008 for all full-time dispatchers hired as of Jan. 1 of that year. Officials said dispatcher training -- which previously was the responsibility of each individual agency -- was too varied.
Stephan Bunker, a Maine Public Utilities Commission Emergency Communications Bureau official who organized the training, said he would like to see all dispatchers, regardless of who their employer is, complete the course.
“We don’t want Maine to fall prey because we didn’t care enough about this profession to at least provide them with a basic minimum-training program,” Bunker said.
The 40-hour class from the National Academy of Dispatch covers basic emergency telecommunication rules and skills -- how to calm a frantic caller, operate radios and appropriately dispatch public safety officers.
Dispatchers at Monday’s training course came from all over Maine, from Wells to Aroostook County. Represented agencies included municipal police departments, state-run dispatch centers and county and regional communication centers. There was also a representative from the University of Southern Maine Police Department.
The experience level in the room was just as diverse. Some dispatchers had been involved in public safety for more than decade; others, months or days.
Robinson Copeland, a dispatcher for Lewiston and Auburn, left behind careers in retail and human resources in July to enter the public safety arena.
“I wanted to do something different, and help people,” said Copeland, of Auburn.
He didn’t want to be police officer, however, and dispatching seemed like the next logical step to him.
Calls involving the children are the most heart-wrenching, he said.
“Whether it’s a medical call or something that needs police intervention, those are the hardest,” Copeland, a father, said. “But you have to take control of the call. You have to stay calm, because if your level of intensity increases, (the caller’s) level of intensity will increase.”
Copeland hopes the training course will bring “consistency” to how all agencies handle certain matters.
“I mean, every center will have its own (standard operating procedures), but the state does dictate that some matters be dealt with in a specific way, and that is what I’m interested in.”
One unified policy emphasized by instructors Monday was, “when in doubt, send them out.”
This year, there have been repeated complaints and allegations of mishandling emergency calls made against the state-run dispatch center in Augusta. Department of Public Safety officials and dispatch center supervisors, however, deny these complaints were the catalyst for this training.
“No, not true,” Mike Smith, director of the Somerset County Communication Center, said. “This was mandated long before then.”
Smith was part of a task force exploring uniform dispatch training in 2006. After such training was approved in the Legislature in late 2007, it became law for all full-time public safety employees, who were required to complete the basic 40-hour emergency communication course within the first 12 months of employment.
However, delays followed, as officials tried to settle on a training program and curriculum then instructed a handful of supervisors to helm the classes.
“It’s a long time coming,” Smith said.
No one from the Augusta-based Central Maine Regional Communication Center was present Monday. Bunker said subsequent training courses will be held after this week, depending on the number of participants.
“It’s baby steps,” Bunker told the 20 dispatchers of getting their peers to participate in the course. “This training is going through its own evolution, and you folks are at the forefront.”
The standardized training course, implemented by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, is funded by the emergency calling surcharge on phone bills.
Copyright 2009 Kennebec Journal