I agree with niqbal.

The standby/unlock screen should show more information about phone details.

For the dashboard my suggestion would be to use the status bar icons area and add in some kind of phone control icons that would show phone status, for example:
1) Voicemails
2) Text messages
3) Missed Calls

This could be extended for emails also but initially I think it would be most helpful to use for phone functionality.

This would follow other phone OS's where any missed event notifications appear in the status area - symbian 5th presents these icons on the stop status area of the display.

You would then be able to drop down the status area and click on the phone notification button to open a separate window which would show the details about each individual phone event. Clicking on these events could then take you to the applicable application, for example:
* Clicking on a missed call event would take you to the phone app and dial the number.
* Clicking on a voicemail would take you to the phone app and dial your voicemail
* Clicking on a text message would take you to the conversations application