Professional help is on the way for communities who ever have any missing children or Amber Alerts issued. Many communities around the country are now starting what is called CART, or Child Abduction Response Team.
The 10-member Child Abduction Response Team leaves today for a week of training in San Francisco. The U.S. Department of Justice is paying for the training, airfare, lodging and materials.
The Pierce County [in the Tacoma, Washington area] contingent will be one of several CART-trained groups throughout the country. If certified by the Justice Department, it will be the only activated and certified team in the state, Troyer said.
The concept was developed after the abduction of an 11-year-old girl in Florida in 2004. Officials working that case discovered they needed trained experts to respond immediately, assist the lead law enforcement agency and bring additional resources to the effort.
The CART training is designed to provide team members with resources and tools that can be useful when a child is abducted. The training includes a tabletop exercise during which the team is evaluated for its response and performance in an abduction scenario.
Pierce County’s team is comprised of two sheriff’s detectives, a search-and-rescue specialist, a forensics officer, the county’s Amber Alert coordinator, two public information officers, a deputy prosecutor, a victim-witness coordinator and a sheriff’s supervisor.
Once trained, the team will be able to assist any law enforcement agency that needs help responding to the abduction of a child. The CART team would provide support, pull in other resources and provide expertise to the investigating agency, Troyer said.
Having these trained teams in place is just another fantastic step in keeping children as safe as possible.
As we roll into another school year with parents buying all of those items that their children might need for the new year, does your child have the proper backpack for their size? LessonTutor.com gives us “five steps to preventing backpack related injuries”:
- Ensure that your child’s backpack is sturdy and appropriately sized. Some manufacturers offer special child sized versions for children ages five to 10. These packs weigh less than a pound and have shorter back lengths and widths to prevent slippage.
- Consider more than looks when choosing a backpack. An ill-fitting pack can cause back pain, muscle strain or nerve impingement. To help distribute the load, look for packs with padded shoulder straps and waist straps.
- Ensure that the weight of your child’s pack does not exceed 15% of his or her body weight. Avoid overloading by prioritizing the items your child carries and eliminating unnecessary contents.
- Teach your child to pack his or her backpack by evenly distributing the contents throughout the pack.
- Insist that your child never carry a backpack over one shoulder. Both shoulder straps - as well as the waist strap - should be used at all times.
As children and teens become more and more web savvy, keeping up with their online activities is becoming increasingly difficult for parents. A Galveston, Texas woman learned that that hard way when her 15 year old daughter went missing. It was discovered the teen had gone off to meet with someone she met on MySpace and was gone for more than two days.
As it turns out, not even Gonzales’ mother knew of her daughter’s online activities. Police said the teen’s conversations with the man who she allegedly ran off with began in May.
No one knew how serious those conversations were.
That, said child safety experts, is the first tip parents should follow.
“You (need to) monitor that activity. Know who your kids are interacting with,” said Ken Baines, the director of programs of the Covenant House.
Studies have shown a third of all teenagers have been contacted by complete strangers online. Experts agree the best defense is still a face-to-face conversation before stories like Lauralee Gonzales’ begin.
A video report that addresses the issue further can be found on
KHOU.com
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