Extra training

[CommDiva]

What kind of extra training does your dispatch centre have you do to keep you up to scratch? Do you do regular 'paper' dispatching, to simulate your CAD crashing? Do you do practice runs at your backup centre (if you have one)?
I'm looking for ideas for training, as it seems we are given the most ridiculous things to study. Sometimes it feels as though we are given these little courses or training sessions as a 'make work' project for someone, and they have very little practical use to us. We are a large fire dispatch centre, no EMS dispatch as the ambulance service in Ontario is run by a different government ministry.

Thanks for any and all replies

Pat

[MrJim911]

If you are fire only then I would consider hosting a Fire Dispatch class if your agency can afford it. You'll get a discount or certain number of free seats when you host.

If your talking about a in-house, free, kind of training, have a fire department rep come in and do a "what we like to hear out in the field" class. The comm people are able to learn what the field personell like to hear and in turn we get to tell them what we like to hear from them, it would be more of a 2 way discussion then a him telling us how to do our jobs and vice versa.

Or simulate an event that does not happen often, large hazmat incident, terrorist event, etc.... Get the fire dept's involved and do radio/response drills.