FY2011 Arlington Fire Department Annual Report FY 2011 | Page 43

Newsletter Title Page 43 The 9-1-1 Dispatch Center serves as the entry point for all calls for emergency services, including Fire, Police, and ambulance. Dispatch Services is committed to providing cost-effective, prompt, and accurate processing of emergency and non-emergency calls for service. Call takers are trained to handle emergency calls for service for Police and Fire, then receive additional training in CPR and Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) to process medical calls for service. This additional training enables call takers to provide life saving pre-arrival instructions while emergency responders are en route. Bilingual employees, fluent in Spanish and Vietnamese are available for interpretation. Arlington 9-1-1 also subscribes to the AT&T Language Line, which can translate over 140 languages. Each call take station is equipped with Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) equipment and employees are trained to take calls from hearing impaired callers. In Fiscal 2011, the Dispatch Center processed 432,920 incoming calls; dispatched 370,795 Police calls; 37,717 Fire calls; and 39,253 ambulance calls. In addition to the calls for service, dispatch responded to 2,669 open records requests by citizens and the District Attorney‘s Office. Dispatch Services was awarded its initial accreditation in July 2004 from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). There are 218 mandatory and other-thanmandatory standards. Agencies must comply with all mandatory standards and 80 percent of the other-than-mandatory standards and must reaccredit every three years. During the re-accreditation process in 2010, Arlington received the Tri-Arc Award, which is presented to agencies that have concurrent CALEA Accreditation for their law enforcement, public safety training, and public safety communications agencies. Arlington Dispatch Services was also selected as a Flagship Agency by demonstrating exceptional success in the accreditation process. Flagship Agencies are used by other agencies as a resource to assist them through their accreditation process. Angie Phillips - The National 9-1-1 Call-Taker of the Year To the rescue! Ingrid Massingill, Julie Torres, Sue Mohri show Charlene Box they care! 43 Working Together to Make Arlington Better.