Re: 911:: Roll Call and passing on information for Dispatchers

[Guest guest]

1. We do not have a roll call. Information for the day is passed on from the

dispatcher to the relieving dispatcher. The supervisors also pass along any

major happenings that day to the oncoming supervisor. All this is done

verbally.

If something has happened w/the phones, CAD, or our records system this

is passed on verbally as well as logged into a " trouble log "

2. Job Assignments for the shift are assigned by the shift supervisor. We

rotate

during the shift. We usually do 4 hrs calltake and 4 hrs in the radio room

working

either the primary dispatch channel, the service channel, or fire channel.

If we're

short handed you may end up working in the radio room the entire shift. If

we're

over staffed (doesnt happen very often!!) you may do an entire shift in

calltake.

The supervisor tries to rotate your assignment so that you don't work the same

channel day to day.

Hope this helps??

Jen s

Abilene PD/Abilene TX

[Guest guest]

Amy wrote:

> I need some help... We will be combining with a

> neighboring town for dispatching and the issue of roll

> call and passing on information has come up.

>

>

we do a roll call/briefing, we call it shift change, at the latest 5 min mins

prior to shift change.  We were always told that if your relief doesn't get

there before 5 till, they don't deserve a shift change..hmm.. I can't ever do

that tho.. our shift change consists of mainly a recap of the evening, (if

they relieve you at a good time, hehe) tell them what officers are out,

anything held over, etc... We also have a hot sheet in our CAD, and its easy

to use. Like if we are expecting an Administrative message from out of state,

whos on vacation, etc. We put any important information we feel needs to be

passed on to other shifts. sometimes we even print it out for our relief.. It

works well with us.. Probably not any help to ya, just thought I'd tell ya

what my agency does... ITS MY MONDAY...ARGGG.. BTW. we are a small Iowa

agency, two on the console at all times, doing it all..We might get 2 or 3

9-1-1 calls a night, our guys are traffic nuts, they run alot of traffic.

take care

KEEP THEM SAFE

Dallas County Sheriffs Office

Adel, IA

aka. jamicans@...

" If you find a job you love, you will never have to work a day in your life. "

[Guest guest]

We dispatch for 8 communities, all fire/ems related. Our dispatchers have a

daily log book to keep important shift information written down. They put in

major events, units out of service etc. We also have a white board on the

wall to accomplish the same tasks. The dispatchers must " pass on " to the

relieving dispatcher the same information. Things run pretty good this way.

We have no formal briefing.

Gloria Street

RFPA California

[Guest guest]

1. No roll-call. We have a big whiteboard in each pod for noting

important calls, special teams on call status changes, anything we might

forget later. A short verbal exchange between dispatchers at shift change

works just fine. And the one thing that holds the whole show

together.........yellow sticky notes (post-its).

2. At LESA we are either call takers (communication officer is the title

here) or dispatchers. I'm a dispatcher (county side), so when I come in I

know each day exactly where to go.

3. I used to be an officer and roll-call was good because you had no idea

what was going on in the outside world. But for dispatching when you sit

down the whole world is right at your fingertips and nothing is left to the

imagination, after the short verbal briefing.

4. Whenever I have a difficult or mind boggling decision to make I go

to....http://www.resort.com/~banshee/Misc/8ball/

Bob in Tacoma

Dispatcher

Law Enforcement Support Agency

[Guest guest]

I work for a small county in FL .

We don't do roll call. But we do a pass on book. Each shift does a pass on

of the things that happened during their shift. We also pass on verbally as

the present calls in progress & anything serious that happened as you don't

always get to read pass on the minute you come on. This is kept in a book,

so you can go back from your days off & know what has happened. Each month

gets pulled several days within the next month and filed. This has been the

best way we came up with & has worked great.

[Guest guest]

At 09:49 AM 03/21/2001 -0800, Amy asked us for our input:

>I need some help... We will be combining with a

>neighboring town for dispatching and the issue of roll

>call and passing on information has come up.

>

>Here's the answers that I'm looking for...

>1)Does your agency have a roll call for the

>dispatchers? If not, how do you pass on information

>such as things going on in the towns that day, calls

>the officers are still working on, etc? (A pass on

>book, word of mouth, etc)

Well, my department operates 24 Comm Centers, from the itsy-bitsy to the

humongous ones. Mine is a fairly small Comm Center; we don't have " roll

call " - our schedule doesn't support a whole shift change of all personnel

at one time, since there are staggered shift start times for different

dispatchers throughout a 24-hr period.

Of course, much of the information one needs can be found right in active

CAD incident logs. It only takes some initiative to review them.....

Our BIG Comm Centers actually have " roll call briefing " before each shift.

(There's a large number of dispatchers changing shifts at the same time....)

Regardless of the size of our Comm Centers, " Brief your relief " is the

rule. Additionally, my Comm Center has (as do the others) a " Briefing

Board " with policy and procedure changes and other short-term AND long-term

information notices. Each dispatcher is required to read the Briefing

Board daily and sign off on each item. (The supervisor conducting roll

call briefings at the big Comm Centers signs off each item as it's

presented at least 3 days in a row.) At my Comm Center, this Briefing

Board is maintained for a full year, then purged into a binder. We have

several years' worth of binders; much of the " permanent " information is

incorporated into our SOP at various times.

At each radio console, there is also a small document holder in which to

place notices of a temporary nature, such as the Operational Plans for

special events, other shift " hold-over " items, etc.

>2)How are job assignments(call taker, radio, etc)

>decided and handed out? Do you know where you'll be

>working ahead of time or not until you walk in the

>door for the day?

Well, in our big Comm Centers, the supervisors assign those positions, and

usually employees can " trade out " with others before the end of briefing.

To some extent, anyway; the supervisor(s) approve those trades (or not).

At my little Comm Center, there are only two radio positions and four

call-taking positions. The dispatchers pretty much rotate themselves

through the positions day by day; I keep an eye out to make sure nobody's

hogging a particular radio or avoiding any particular position for any

noticeable length of time. (The dispatchers also have to keep monthly

activity sheets documenting where they've worked each day.)

The wall schedule is a place where they " pre-flight " their planned seating

positions, sometimes. Some of them only write down where they worked;

others post where they'd LIKE to work the next day, or two, or three. They

work it out amongst each other on the shift(s) and it's a dynamic situation

each day. Because of the 10-hr shifts and staggered shift times, they'll

often trade off part way through their shift with someone else.

Sometimes, they'll come to work and something will have changed; we have a

few trainees only signed off for call-taking, and so there may not be much

of a choice for a fully-trained dispatcher except WHICH radio console to

choose. (Minimum staffing is usually four: two radios, two call-takers.

The midnight shift drops to three after 0100 or 0300, depending on the day

of the week. That further limits the choices of where to sit.)

>3)Positive or negative views on having a roll call.

It's necessary in the larger Comm Centers. " What's going on " in a fairly

" global " sense is easier to impart to a whole group at once, without the

distractions of settling into position with resource materials, plugging in

headsets, phones ringing, etc. Individual " right here at this radio " stuff

still requires folks to " brief your relief, " of course.

I would have liked to have had roll call briefings even in my Comm Center,

back when the dispatchers worked 8 hour shifts that changed 3 times a day

at the same time each day, but that would have required them reporting to

work for 8.5 hr days.... time to brief everybody ahead of the shift change

for about 15 minutes and keep the off-going shift there for up to 15

minutes past the end of their traditional shift end time. Now that we have

about five different start times, and some folks start " all by themselves "

(with no other partners reporting at the same time), roll call briefings

wouldn't work for us.

I do like our Briefing Board, though. It's useful also for passive

training or informational bulletin distribution. Of course, someone's

initials on the sheet(s) doesn't ensure understanding... but neither does

reading such things to a group. Somebody could easily have taken a mental

trip to the Bahamas during a formal roll-call briefing.

>4)Anything else that will help us find an answer to

>this.

In my previous incarnation at another agency providing consolidated

communications services for multiple agencies, the practice was " Brief Your

Relief " and using Briefing Boards. Information that came from user

agencies was assimilated in this fashion. Many of the user agencies had

shift change hours markedly different from the Comm Center's, so current

information of a temporary nature was often called over to the dispatchers

at " their " consoles. They were expected to disseminate it. (Sometimes

they didn't.....)

There needed to be an active liaison between the Comm Center and the user

agencies for training issues and problem-solving. This required dedicated

personnel on EACH side (Comm Center and user agency) to keep the

information flowing. That was usually MY job.... but I often delegated it

to responsible individuals as an extra " perk " with some small bit of status

attached. <grin>

Happy to be here, proud to serve.

Olmstead

Communications Supervisor

~on the Central California coastline~

" Not presumed to be an official statement of my employing agency. "

Home E-mail: mailto:gryeyes@...

http://www.gryeyes.com/

[Guest guest]

1) We dont have a roll call in the morning, the operator on the channel

being relieved passes on any special information that needs relaying. The

oncoming supervisor is breifed by the on duty supervisor.

2) We work on a rotation basis, rotating throught the center. We change

positions ever 2 hours, thus giving everyone a break between their

respective positions. At the end of the day, the position you leave off on

is the one you start out on the next day.

Rotation is great!! You don't get bogged down at the same position, getting

slammed on the channel or picking up those phones.

Alford

Winston Salem, NC

Police/Fire Communications

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[Guest guest]

Amy,

Hope this helps at least a little bit!

Amy G, Montgomery County Police, MD

-----------------------------------

1)Does your agency have a roll call for the dispatchers? If not, how do you

pass on information such as things going on in the towns that day, calls the

officers are still working on, etc? (A pass on book, word of mouth, etc)

Yes, we have a roll call before every shift. Information from within

communications and also from out on the road is put on a clipboard

throughout the day, and the supervisor reads what is new/pertinent to us. We

get the color code, any critical missing persons or unidentified DOAs,

lookouts for subjects who may be an immediate danger to our officers,

planned CAD or MILES/NCIC outages, etc. With a minimum of 14 people coming

on per shift, we don't realistically have any other way to disseminate the

information quickly and uniformly.

2)How are job assignments(call taker, radio, etc) decided and handed out? Do

you know where you'll be working ahead of time or not until you walk in the

door for the day?

One supervisor is given the job of making daily schedules. The schedules

vary from day to day, and unless you get a sneak peek at the schedule

folder, you don't have any idea what you will be working til you get into

work. We are generally assigned 4hrs of radio and 4hrs of phones, but we are

given leeway in swapping assignments with other dispatchers.

3)Positive or negative views on having a roll call.

I think if you have a larger communications center roll call is necessary.

From reading other posts, it sounds like in a small comm center other

methods probably are a lot more efficient than roll call. I guess the

question is, how much daily information is there to disseminate to how many

employees. I can pretty much guarantee you that a pass on book or word of

mouth would not be effective in our center.

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[Guest guest]

In our department (police) we have roll call before every shift. We need

to arrive 15 minutes early for a briefing of which we are compensated for. We

also keep daily log notes regarding anything really important that needs to

be passed on.

There are two dispatchers on duty per shift. What has worked for us is

that we have one person work as the primary dispatcher who will dispatch the

units and who will run LEAPS/CJIS. The second dispatcher will work as a call

taker and answer all phone lines and the e911 calls. If it becomes busy we

share responsiblities evenly. What ends up happening is that half way through

the shift we switch off positions. That way no one ends up getting burnt out

or unfamiliar with the LEAPS/CJIS system. So far this has worked out well for

us.

[Guest guest]

Rotation is great!! You don't get bogged down at the same position, getting

slammed on the channel or picking up those phones.

Alford

********************************************************************

We don't have a rotation or briefing. Officers work out in the field (12

counties of eastern Iowa). Wouldn't be practical. However, if they all had MDT

(which they don't) an " on-line " briefing could be held which could include

dispatch.

Hey Dave, you any relation to the Head basketball coach at the University of

Iowa, Steve Alford?

Iowa State Patrol Communications, Cedar Rapids

Werling, N0XZY AOL IM Ridgeroader

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