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Festivals provide chance to protect children |
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Tuesday, June 17 2008 |
By CHRIS MEYERS
Staff writer
About 2,100 children are reported missing every day, bringing to reality every parent or guardian’s worst nightmare.
The frantic searches, the calls for help and trying to get an image of the missing child out to the public are the crucial first steps in finding the child.
For residents of Whitley County, a local child identification program offers a chance to get information on local youth recorded in a national database.
Entitled “Safe-Assured ID,” the information about the children is stored to a CD.
After months of planning, fundraising and visits around the community, the program is up and running, with the next appearance being at this year’s Turtle Days festival.
Greg Greaf, a reserve deputy with the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department, is hoping parents will turn out for the event and get their children’s information recorded.
From 4 to 8 p.m. Friday at Churubusco High School, parents will have the chance to register their children in the program.
The Churubusco stop will be one of many made during the summer festival months.
On Saturday, the program will be set up at the YMCA B.A.B.E. Extravaganza, and from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. June 26 it will be offered in the basement of the Whitley County Jail.
Parents will also have a chance to register their children with the program at the 4-H Fair in July.
The program works much like traditional child ID programs that offer a photo and personal information to be recorded for the parents to keep in case they need to distribute it.
The difference is that Safe-Assured offers all the information in digital format.
Once finished, the CD can hold all 10 electronically imaged fingerprints, a digital photograph of the child, a video with sound showing mannerisms and movements, and private information such as general physical description, street address, date of birth, life-threatening medical conditions, identifying scars or marks and tattoos.
The CD also allows parents the ability to create a missing person poster using the digital photograph on the disc.
“My goal is to get it to as many people as possible for free,” Greaf said in a past interview about the program.
Because the discs contain so much personal information once completed, a password must be entered to view the information.
“The parents and guardians are the only ones who will hold the access,” Greaf said, adding that employees of Safe-Assured will randomly check on local administrators of the program to make sure all information has been removed from the computers used to make the discs.
Because the information is stored digitally, it can quickly be sent to other police departments in hopes of lessening search times.
Aside from the traditional use of recording children’s information, Greaf said he has also read of the program being used to record information of Alzheimer’s patients in the event they are reported missing.
The Safe-Assured program is affiliated with and endorsed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, June 18 2008 )
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