Season 2 Episode 4 Jessica Lindley - Breaking Barriers in Public Safety

Someone told Jessica Lindley she couldn't be a 911 dispatcher. She's been proving them wrong ever since. In this episode, host Lori Henricksen sits down with Jessica—a working dispatcher and a professional with a disability—for a conversation that challenges just about every assumption the 911 industry still carries about who belongs behind the headset.Jessica's connection to emergency communications started long before she ever applied for the job. At nine years old, she made a 911 call that changed her life—and planted a seed that never left. When a high school counselor later told her a dispatch career wasn't realistic for someone like her, she didn't walk away. She found a way in, and she's been building a case for inclusion ever since.This episode gets into the real, practical side of what it looks like to make a comm center accessible—not in theory, but on the floor. Headsets instead of handsets. Typing instead of handwriting when CAD goes down. Alternative radio controls. Low lockers, accessible shelves, verbal CPR certification. Jessica walks through the accommodations that made the difference for her, most of which cost little to nothing and benefit the entire team. She and Lori also dig into where most agencies are still getting it wrong—job descriptions written to exclude without realizing it, recruiting processes that never reach candidates with disabilities, and a lack of mentorship or representation that makes the career feel out of reach before anyone even applies.But the conversation goes beyond access. It gets at something deeper: the unique value that dispatchers with disabilities bring to the calls no one else quite knows how to handle—elderly callers, disabled callers, people who feel invisible until someone on the other end of the line actually gets it.If you hire, train, or lead people in a 911 center, this episode will make you rethink what an ideal candidate looks like—and why the most resilient, compassionate centers are the ones that stop assuming limitations and start asking what people can do.Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/comms-coach-podcast/