Incident Dispatcher Training

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IDT training allows for an innovative and productive use of your dispatchers. It will enhance their daily dispatching skills through an understanding of equipment and fire characteristics. It will also prepare your dispatchers to deploy a communications command post or assist at the fire scene. IDT is a new and proven concept of bringing dispatchers to the Command Post. Standardized training for IDT dispatchers is a must. The California Fire Chiefs Association has formalized this type of training for IDT's within the state. For agencies outside California, we will customize the curriculum to meet your mutual aid and automatic aid agreements. This training will help any dispatcher that has responsibility for Fire Service Dispatching. This class is designed to train agency management and dispatch staff to develop and deploy a rapid-deployment local Incident Dispatcher Team into the field to support local or regional emergencies. Taken in conjunction with an Incident Command (ICS) 200, 300, or 400 class, will qualify the student to participate as an Incident Dispatcher in the field. This class is intended as a train-the-trainer class.

Topics include:

• Introduction to IDT: The role of a rapid-response Incident Dispatcher Team for local agency emergencies.
• How having an ID at the incident command post can free an Incident Commander from being tied to the radio, with an incident-specific communicator becoming the IC's ears and voice and providing status accountability of units on scene.
• ICS Review: Whether on a large mutual aid incident or a single-agency local emergency, the Incident Dispatcher operates within the boundaries of the Incident Command System. ICS is a prerequisite for this course and this segment is intended to provide a summarized review of ICS.
• Basic Fire & Rescue Mutual Aid: How the Mutual Aid system works, how local agencies fit into it, how the Incident Dispatcher fits into it. Guest instructors, if available, will cover mutual aid parameters and protocols, and local forestry fire agencies, appropriate to the local operation where the class is taught.
• Command Post Tactics: A general overview of incident command post set-up, from a local first alarm through a Base Camp at a huge campaign wildfire. How is the CP organized, what are its components, how can its modular design expand and contract as the incident grows and wanes?
• ICS Forms: ICS has forms for everything, and each form is numbered or colored according to its purpose. The fire is not out until the paperwork is done, and there's tons of it. An introduction to the ICS 201, 214, and other forms an Incident Dispatcher may use on a local deployment.
• Resource Accountability: The importance of resource accountability. 
• Methods of status keeping: T-Cards, magnet boards, ICS forms, computerized databases. 
• The role of the Incident Dispatcher in Resource Status.
• Setting Up A Local Agency IDT: How to set up an IDT for your local fire department, district, or region. 
• How to tread the political path through your local fire chiefs, police chiefs, communications managers, and other authorities to establish an effective, workable local agency IDT. 
• A Hybrid Fire/Police IDT: How to develop or cross-train a tactical dispatch team to support fire, law enforcement, or disaster response operations. Differences and similarities between fire and police-oriented field dispatch teams. 
• IDT Equipment: What kinds of safety gear and communications equipment does an Incident Dispatch Team need? Radios, pagers, safety gear, and identification. An overview of mobile communications and command vehicles; how they are configured, how to acquire or develop one, and how to work in one. 
• IDT Training: As with any other skill or assignment, comprehensive and documented training is essential to any program. A comprehensive guide to the initial and ongoing training required to establish and maintain an Incident Dispatcher Team. 
• Mobile Communications Vans: An overview of styles and configurations. How to acquire and equip a communications or command vehicle. How to manage its deployment and development. How to work in one. 
• Local Mutual Aid and the IDT: How to integrate an IDT program with your neighboring agencies. Sharing IDT resources to support major incidents and also providing back-up for neighboring PSAPs. What IDs should know about taking their skills to support another agency's dispatch center? 
• Communications Van Operations/Table Top Exercises: A hands-on demonstration of several mobile Communications Vans [if available]. Get a close-up look at how these vehicles are configured what you might encounter while working in one. Then participate in a table-top simulation of command post operation, communications, form keeping, and resource status keeping. 

This class will benefit all dispatchers. By understanding the IDT system and the information provided, it will prepare them to better handle a variety of fire situations and equipment deployments. Whether your goal is a deployable team of dispatchers or a better-educated dispatcher; this class will raise their level of knowledge and professionalism.