Life in the Force Control Room - Amy Moore
Amy Moore is one of our Force Control Room (FCR) dispatch operatives. She spends each shift deploying police officers to calls from the public – here’s an insight into why she joined the FCR and the impact her role can have.
My name is Amy and I have been working in the Force Control Room since April 2021. I started out as a call handler and have now joined the dispatch team as of 2023.
Before I started working for the police, I was studying history at university with the goal of working in artefact conservation as well as working as an assistant bar manager at a night club. During my final year at university the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I found myself disillusioned; I could no longer see the value in preserving objects when so many people were dying.
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With the disruption the pandemic brought to my studies, the realisation that I no longer wanted to pursue my chosen career, and the impact it all had on my mental health – I chose to leave university and focus on finding a new career path.
Knowing I wanted to help people, but being too squeamish to go into medicine, when the opportunity came up to join the Force Control Room, I jumped at it!
It’s very cliché but everyone who works in the Force Control Room makes a difference every day, and no two days are the same.
An incident that sticks with me is a call I took during overtime from a woman asking for advice about an incident that happened with her daughter where she is being assaulted and bullied at school. I passed her through to the crime recording team and gave her advice about support groups and Op Shout for her daughter to use if she is anxious or needs someone to talk to. I later found out, when I resumed my dispatching duties, that an officer went out to the child and has assisted in getting this matter resolved and submitted paperwork that is helping to get the child safeguarded at a different school. I also found out that the child used the support suggested, including Op Shout when she got scared walking home and is doing much better.
This is just one of many incidents that I have dealt with, but it was so rewarding to see it through from original call to the result after the officer deployed.