Photo By Scott Sturkol | Members of the general public visit displays organized by the Fort McCoy (Wis.)...... read more read more
Subscribe
For more than five years, Fort McCoy’s Directorate of Emergency Services (DES) Police Department has provided hundreds of families with free ID cards for children through its Operation Family Safe community-outreach efforts. In 2018, the systems used to create those cards received a big upgrade.
Earlier in the year, DES received three new Operation Family Safe child ID program kits, said Detective Chase Laffea. The kits make ID cards and compiles fingerprints, photos, and video of each child at no cost to the families.
“Having all the new items really speeds the process up, too,” Laffea said. “Our goal was to get them in here before this year’s National Night Out in Tomah, which we did, and it worked out great.”
During the DES’ use of the systems at the Monroe County National Night Out event Aug. 7, staff members helped 65 families — doubling the effort of the previous year. Laffea explained how the operation works at a community event.
“At an event, we will typically have an information stand, and we’ll have a greeter there,” Laffea said. “That person is there to answer questions and educate the customers on what we are doing. The greeter will then provide a biographical data sheet to the customer to fill out. The sheet is designed so as they answer questions it will flow with the computer system as the information is input.
“We then take that biographical sheet, once it is filled out, at the station … and one person will input the data and another person will engage with the child and the parents,” he said. “Once the data is collected, we create the card, burn the information to a CD, and print out an updated data/information sheet about their child.”
No information collected is stored or kept by DES personnel. All information is returned to the parents/families. “To complete the whole process, it takes about 10 to 15 minutes,” Laffea said.
The program is also used during many Fort McCoy events, such as the Fort McCoy Day for Kids every September. Laffea said having this information prepared for parents is important.
“From a parent’s perspective, for me, it’s like adding insurance,” Laffea said.
“We hope it never happens, but this information will help if your child comes up missing. With this you have information readily available to hand off to law enforcement. Law enforcement can take all that information and start getting together all they would need to do an Amber Alert or a bulletin to help find that missing child.”
Laffea added that doing community outreach also helps with crime prevention and more.
“Operation Family Safe is one example of how we connect with the people whom we serve, and, it improves communication, supports crime prevention, and lets people see who we are,” he said. “A little positive community outreach is always a good thing, especially nowadays. People might see us when we are doing an enforcement action or responding to something bad that has happened.
“We want to show the other side of law enforcement and we want to show that we do what we do because we care about people,” Laffea said. “We want to make sure people receive help. We want to make sure people are safe and secure, and we want to put forth a positive light that we are here to help and that we’re human, too.”
Sgt. Alex Rivera with DES has helped Laffea with the child ID program since it began. He said more and more DES personnel are getting trained on the systems and want to be a part of the effort.
“We support as many events as we can,” Rivera said. “The people who support this program at the department often rearrange their schedules so they can do the work. That’s a testament to how important and how much we believe in this effort.”
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at www.mccoy.army.mil, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.
| Date Taken: | 09.13.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 09.13.2018 14:50 |
| Story ID: | 292675 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 68 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort McCoy police utilize upgraded child ID systems for community outreach, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
