Safety for Children

Child safety utility InstantAmber linked to an article from the Boston Globe last week about the validity of Amber Alerts and if they actually work. A study from the University of Nevada states that the alerts are not working, maybe even hurting the quest to find missing children.

The lead criminology researcher at the University of Nevada, Timothy Griffin, refers to the Amber Alert system as “crime control theater” and worries that the system may be based more on emotions that actions that may actually work. However, the work of the criminologists only focused on a handful of the Amber Alerts issued, and they also did not have the full report in any of those cases. He still claims that his research is absolute.

Can anything that helps find a missing child be bad?

Hazing has become a serious issue for kids in college who are pledging into certain fraternities or sororities. University of Texas freshman Phanta Phoummarath was required by older members of the fraternity he was pledging to drink to excess and then was left alone, succumbing later in the evening to alcohol poisoning. Since his death, his family have set up a website to promote anti hazing behavior, and have even produced a video on the subject to distribute to universities as well as across the internet. If you have a child who is on their way to college, you can download the video here to show to them if you feel like they should be warned about the dangers of hazing in college.

On August 11 Sesame Street will launch an extensive website redesign that will include hundreds of games, almost 3,000 classic videos, and an application called “PlaySAFE” which keeps children from wondering away to other websites on their own.

For the first time ever, sesamestreet.org will have live action residents — Muppets will greet kids upon arrival at the home page and guide them throughout their visit to the site. A first for any children’s website, the live action component helps to guide users by indicating what tabs are live and where kids can point and click — whether it’s for games, videos, playlists, Muppets or "My Street," a feature that allows parents and children to personalize their experience by saving their favorite videos and games for frequent access.

"The new website is really the future of the Workshop," adds Gary E. Knell, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop. "While parents and caregivers know they can depend on the television show to educate and entertain their preschoolers, the site will provide one central destination for everything Sesame from videos, games to educational content, providing fans of all ages basically a trusted ‘Sesame Channel’."

In the PlaySAFE mode of the website, “children can interact with Sesame Street games and playlists but cannot navigate away from sesamestreet.org.” A great way for parents to feel secure when their small children are playing online.

From WHAM in Rochester, NY:

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is holding its Ninth Annual Motorcycles for the Missing Ride, a 75-mile poker run through the Finger Lakes region, on July 27.

In the last year alone, NCMEC/NY distributed nearly a million posters of missing children and over 300,000 pieces of prevention education literature.

They have coordinated dozens of child identification programs that enrolled thousands of children and adults and conducted nearly a thousand education programs, drawing over 60,000 participants.

Most importantly, however, they assisted in the recovery of 1,886 children through poster distribution and case assistance.

If you are in the area, be sure and check out this amazing cause helping missing children everywhere.

A happy ending for a missing child over the weekend, in which an Amber Alert was issued and the child recovered within hours. Alexia Bevils, a five year old from Davenport, Illinois, was found thanks to a citizen who had seen the Amber Alert earlier in the evening on television station WQAD.

"The Amber Alert was on TV, running on channel 8," said Kisha Rockwood, Davenport.

"We were watching TV, and the Amber Alert came running across the bottom of the screen," added Zenobia Rockwood. "I programmed the license plate into my cell phone."

"I do feel good," Zenobia Rockwood concluded. "It’s absolutely great, and it’s good for the Amber Alert."

With the recent news that there may be some detractors of the Amber Alert system, it is always a fantastic thing when a child is recovered with the assistance of it.

It was announced last week by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association that 18 of the largest telecom companies will now block access to any websites that are known to host or distribute child pornography. The companies that have agreed to the block cover 87% of subscribers in America, or 112 million homes.

“Building on our strong commitment to online safety, the cable industry wants to help combat child pornography and exploitation,” Kyle McSlarrow (pictured), president and CEO of the NCTA, said in a statement. “By signing the NCMEC [memorandum of understanding], cable Internet service providers are reaffirming their strong commitment to online safety and Internet literacy for all American families.”

The cable operators that have agreed to execute the memorandum of understanding within 30 days include: Comcast Corporation; Cox Communications; Charter Communications; Cablevision Systems Corporation; Bright House Networks; Suddenlink Communications; Mediacom Communications; Insight Communications; Bresnan Communications; Midcontinent Communications; Broadstripe; GCI; Harron Communications; US Cable Corporation; BendBroadband; Eagle Communications; and Sjoberg’s, Inc.  Time Warner Cable has already signed the MOU.

One gigantic step in keeping children everywhere safe from exploitation.

Parents of a missing child are taking every avenue available to them to find her, including setting up a page for the child on social networking site MySpace. Through the page they are able to post numerous photos of the child, write blog posts about the ongoing search for her, as well as include contact information should anyone have a tip. When a child goes missing and time is of the essence, any way to get the word out with photographs can only help recover the child quicker.
 

Are children drinking too much caffeine? Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School think so, saying that children and parents alike may not be sure of exactly what they are consuming.

Candy bars, Mints, Gum and drinks. You can get them all these days packed with caffeine and in some cases, there’s no way to know how much. Some kids are ending up at the hospital poisoned by caffeine.

A recently released report by University of Massachusetts Medical School toxicologist Richard Church tracked 4,600 caffeine-related calls to poison control nationwide in 2005, the most recent statistics available. Half involved people under age 19.

It is important to teach children, especially teens, to be conscience of what they are consuming, and the ill health effects certain items may posses. Energy drinks are so heavily marketed these day, older children might just think they are an alternative to sodas, when in fact they can be dangerous if consumed in too large of quantities.

Looking for different ways to help locate missing children, several law enforcement agencies are now displaying photographs of missing children on several squad cars within the fleet. Several agencies in Arkansas have started the program, including the Clarksville and Fort Smith Police Departments and the Sequoyah County Sherrif’s Department in Oklahoma will follow suit soon.

Four Fort Smith squad cars were unveiled Tuesday. Twenty of the 30-car fleet are destined to each display pictures of children reported missing from the region. Eighteen will feature two children. Two cars each carry pictures of two local missing children - Morgan Nick who was abducted from an Alma ballpark in June 1995 at age 6, and Tony Allen, a Southside High School sophomore who disappeared from his Fort Smith home in 1978. Their pictures depict them as they looked at the time of they went missing and as they would look now, using age-progression technology.

While Amber Alerts are the most widely known way to help find missing children, the local efforts by these law enforcement agencies will go a long way to help.

Many hospitals around the country are now offering what is called the WHALE program, or We Have A Little Emergency. The program consists of using a series of stickers to alert emergency personnel that there is a small child within the car should there be an accident. Utilizing 4 stickers in total, one for each the back and side car windows and two more to be attached to the child’s car seat alerting the emergency worker to the identification of the child, the system is being used in 35 different states.

"The information is important because, obviously, a pediatric patient wouldn’t have the same ability as an adult to communicate with the first responder to tell them what their injury or their illness is, where they hurt, or just for that matter, even just their basic information about who they are and their parents,” said UConn Health Center Fire Department Capt. Greg Priest.

For more information on the WHALE program, be sure and visit their site.