By Faith Peppers
University of
Georgia
A network news show reported a Web site last week with more
than 600 photos of children who were separated from their
parents by Hurricane Katrina. Some are too young to know even
their own name. Others don’t know the names of relatives who
may be able to help them.
Workers from the Center for Missing and Exploited Children are
working alongside law enforcement officers to piece together
information to help find family members to rescue these
children.
It made me wonder: How much help would my own children be in
that situation? What kind of information should I make sure my
3-year-old could give authorities?
Don Bower, a University of Georgia child development expert,
offers these recommendations:
have
vital information — names,
addresses, medical information — written down and safely
attached to children, especially preschoolers, who may not
communicate well with strangers.
“In this situation,” said Bower, a Cooperative Extension
specialist with the UGA College of Family and Consumer
Sciences, “that wasn’t always practical unless you could put it
in a waterproof enclosure.” Put the sealed information in a
child’s pocket, pin it to their clothes or put it on a bracelet
or necklace. Don’t have that information in public view.
most children should be able
to recite their name, address and phone number. That will help
them work with rescue workers to contact family members.
Because children younger than 5 may only know their caregivers
or grandparents by nicknames like Grandma and Grandpa, it’s
essential to have the information in written form.
Teach children, too, to approach people in uniforms — police,
firefighters, military or EMS workers — to ask for help in an
emergency.
children can identify the
school they attend, that can be critical information to
identify them. School officials would have information to help
contact family members.
Parents should have a kit that
includes their children’s recent photos, physical descriptions
(including easily identifiable marks like scars or birthmarks)
and any medical conditions children may have or medications
they may need.
“During the missing-and-murdered-children era in Atlanta, it
became very popular to have your child fingerprinted,” Bower
said, referring to a period in the late 1970s and early ’80s
when 22 children disappeared in metro Atlanta. Many were later
found murdered. “While there’s nothing wrong with having a
child’s fingerprints on file, it shouldn’t give parents a false
sense of security.”
Connecting a child to a set of fingerprints and then back to a
caregiver can be a long, time-consuming process. “It shouldn’t
be parents’ only means of identifying their child,” Bower
said. “You need a more complete system.”
We should all know our medical status, no matter what age.
“As we saw in the case of this hurricane disaster, there were
lots of people, not just children, who showed up at medical
facilities and knew they took regular medication, but had no
idea what the medication was or what condition they had that
required it,” Bower said.
“If you show up without medical history or medications, it’s
hard for medical personnel to help you,” he said. “It’s
especially important to have this written down for kids.”
My parents once got a Christmas card mailed simply to Artis and
Neta, Madison, Ga. No zip code, no street address, no last
name. My oldest child now knows the names and phone numbers of
most of our relatives. But “Artis and Neta, Madison, Ga.,”
could be my 3-year-old’s ticket to safety.
If you have family or friends in the hard-hit area, visit www.missingkids.com
to see if you recognize any of these children. The authorities
and the children need your help. You can also contact the
Katrina Missing Persons Hotline (1-888-544-5475).
(Faith Peppers is a news editor with the University of
Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
