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Meet Kulwinder Kaur, Force Control Room (FCR) Operative, who has been with Northamptonshire Police for 16 years.
“My role mainly involves answering 999 and 101 calls, in addition to completing admin tasks as and when required. I work 12-hour night shifts at the weekends and normally as I start my shift, the phone lines are busy with plenty of 101 calls queuing. 999 calls will be consistent throughout the night, and I do my best to answer them asap. I will listen to each call to make sure I fully understand the caller’s reason for contacting us and log this accordingly on an incident card. I will then grade the incident - whether that’s emergency, prompt, scheduled or non-attendance - and send it to the appropriate desk or team to deal with. The pace is busy mostly until my shift finishes at 5am.
“When I applied for my role online, in addition to passing the paper sift, I went through testing, role playing and interview, as well as the usual background checks, before being offered the job, which I accepted. The best part of this role is doing what we can to help people who have called us at a time they need help in staying safe.
“As a child I wanted to work somewhere within the law as I believe we should all be law abiding citizens. When I saw my role advertised, I was immediately interested and very pleased I was offered this job that I truly enjoy.
“One of the things I’m proud about is my involvement in helping with our honour based violence (HBV) script that the FCR staff use when we receive a call in relation to this type of crime. When I joined the police, I soon realised we needed something better in place to protect victims of HBV incidents, after I had taken a call from a brother who wanted to report his sister missing but in actual fact the family were trying to force her into an arranged marriage. I have also presented the HBV training package to our new starters for the control room. I am passionate about this and want to make sure that if a victim manages to contact us then we need to get their safety put into place asap.
“This job can be difficult in many ways, but especially when we have to tell people that we cannot help them as we are not the correct resource especially in cases involving mental health issues where we are not the correct agency to deal with it. It can also be difficult to deal with calls involving road traffic collisions where the caller often doesn’t know where they are and we must do everything we can to identify the location and send help when necessary.
“Before I began to work for the police, I thought there was little crime but since joining the control room, I have realised crime is absolutely rife, which has made me more conscious about putting everyone’s safety first no matter if I am at home or at work.”
Force Control Room Team Manager Joe O’Connell, Kin’s supervisors, said: “I have line managed Kin throughout the majority of her service with Northamptonshire Police. She provides a first line point of contact in her role as a multi-skilled call handler and crime recorder. She is highly effective in her work always putting her contacts first and ensuring an empathetic experience for anyone she has contact with.
“Kin is also a valued member of my team who has provided guidance and support to new members of staff joining the team to aid in their development towards competence. This in turn has enabled Kin to undertake periods of time assisting the control room training team in support of the training programme and initial call handling development for new starters with us.
“Kin is a worthy recipient of recognition as a true role model and champion for the force control room.”
To find out more about a role in the Force Control Room and to view all our current vacancies, please use the links below.