Fresno 911 Dispatchers Report Trauma From Calls as Agencies Shift Mental Health Support

Fresno’s law enforcement dispatch centers have changed how they handle the mental toll on workers who field calls for drowning children, active sexual assaults, and suicide reports, according to dispatchers and supervisors at the Fresno Police Department and Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.

Matt Mendes, a Sheriff’s Office 911 dispatcher and supervisor, described the lasting impact of certain calls. “We have to hear the screams and the cries for help. We have to make up the scenarios in our heads,” Mendes said. “I do think that we have it tough. We may not see the bodies, but we still have to hear it.”

Jaime Fahlsing, emergency service dispatch manager for Fresno PD and a former dispatcher with over 10 years on the job, recalled two calls that stayed with her: a mother who couldn’t find her son and later called back to report his suicide, and a woman reporting her rapist while the assault was taking place.

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Both dispatch centers have struggled to keep positions filled — a staffing problem that has contributed to both centers falling below the state mandate to answer 90% of 911 calls within 15 seconds, according to a recent Fresno Bee report.

Fahlsing said many dispatchers become desensitized to the trauma they hear daily. Others realize the job is not sustainable after a training process that can take up to a year. “We try to help them through that,” Fahlsing said. “And we respect that, and then they go find another job.”

Fresno PD officials described a shift over the past 10 years from a “tough it out” mentality to normalizing emotional reactions and support.

“When I first started in dispatch, it was the same mentality as law enforcement, in general,” Fahlsing said. “If you can’t handle it, get out, and that was okay back then. But we’ve changed that as an industry, because the stuff that we’re hearing is not normal.”

The focus has shifted to managing emotional tolls rather than compressing and moving on, Fahlsing said.

The Breakdown

• Fresno PD dispatchers now have access to a wellness center they can visit confidentially without supervisor approval for counseling and related services. Therapy dogs are brought in twice a month.
• When a critical incident occurs involving multiple people across the department, a social worker guides a debriefing conversation with everyone involved, including dispatchers, to help process emotions, according to Deputy Police Chief Burke Farrah.
• Fahlsing noted that some agencies still do not include dispatchers in these debriefings. “We’ve just been a voice and been asking for it, and our department is really great at recognizing us. They really support dispatch.”

What This Means for You

Both dispatch centers are currently missing the state-mandated 15-second target for answering 90% of 911 calls. The staffing struggles at both centers are impacting call answer times.

The wellness programs described here — the confidential wellness center, the therapy dogs, the social-worker-led debriefings — represent a cultural shift over the past 10 years from a “tough it out” mentality to normalizing emotional reactions and support.

What to Watch

Both dispatch centers are still failing to meet the state mandate for 911 call answer times. The wellness programs described here are framed as cultural shifts within the agencies.

The source material does not state what these programs cost, where the funding came from, or whether staffing levels have measurably improved since the “tough it out” era ended.