By Sheldon Spackman

BEHIND THE SCENES

A look at Red Deer’s RCMP Operational Communications Centre

Apr 15, 2019 | 2:34 PM

Alberta RCMP is recognizing the essential role of employees in their Operational Communications Centres (OCC) as part of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week April 14-20.

Alberta has two OCCs in Edmonton and Red Deer. Combined, they support 136 detachments and satellite offices throughout Alberta’s RCMP communities, including Alberta Sheriffs (traffic units) and various municipal and Indigenous police agencies, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.

Tracy Duval, RCMP “K” Division OCC Program Provincial Training and Recruiting Coordinator, says this week celebrates the work that emergency professionals do in terms of taking and dispatching 911 calls in Alberta.

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“We are actually kind off a hidden gem here in Red Deer,” says Duval. “Our facility takes all the 911 calls for basically southern Alberta, everything from Wetaskiwin down south. We also have our Edmonton OCC that manages for the north, so everything from Leduc – north.”

Duval says the former Red Deer Rural RCMP detachment on 55 Street receives anything police-related, including all the calls processed by Red Deer 911 and other 911 centres across the province.

“We actually then take the call, evaluate the call and dispatch the call to our officers so they can respond if needed,” she explains. “We handle 63 detachments in this one little centre. In our two centres, we handle 900,000 calls every year and about 25 per cent of those are 911 calls.”

Duval describes the operators as that quiet, calm voice you hope to get on the line if you’ve called 911.

“They do their best to try to obtain information in a very professional, quick way to get people the help that they need,” she exclaims. “It’s a very specific process that happens very quickly and simultaneously. We do our best to make sure that we can get the information from the caller to our officers that need to respond as fast as they need to.”

Duval adds their OCC’s are always on the lookout for potential recruits.

“Our teams can run from 15-20 people per team and between the two centres, we have about 130 people basically that are working,” says Duval. “We are growing, we are always looking for professional people that are wanting to do something that’s super important and be part of what it is that we do. The great thing is, we train internally, so we hire people that might not even realize it’s something that’s even available for them to do.”

In 2018, the Alberta OCCs answered 910,217 calls for service.

(With files from Alberta RCMP)