I recently returned from a trip to Australia where I attended the country’s first conference dedicated to Missing Persons. I met interesting, determined people and had the opportunity to see what our friends Down Under are doing towards solving the conundrum of missing and unidentified persons in their part of the world.
Australia is a county roughly about the same size as the United States, but with slightly less than 23 million people. By contrast the U.S.A. has a population of about 314 million. Divided into eight states, each has its own police. Queensland, which hosted the conference, by comparison, has 16,000 police officers; the NYPD has more than twice that and it’s simply one department in one city in the country.
Australia is making some pretty impressive strides towards recognizing the missing persons issue. One innovative program that really impressed me was the Safely Home initiative.
Safely Home is a way for caretakers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients to help ensure that their loved ones can be tracked and returned to their care should they wander away. As every law enforcement officer is aware, wandering is one of the hallmarks of mental disorders that affect the elderly. It’s the main prompt behind the whole Silver Alert system that proliferates in many states, based on the Amber Alert system developed for children.
For a small fee Safely Home places the elderly person on a national registry that can quickly connect the individual to his or her caretaker. Here’s how it’s accomplished: The elderly person is fitted with a metal bracelet that has a unique identifying number and a national telephone phone contact number. When an officer finds the individual, he or she can check the elderly’s person’s bracelet (which cannot be removed by conventional means) and call the national hotline. The hotline will then put the LEO in touch with the family or caretaker so that they and the bracelet-holder can be reunited.
Many elderly go missing this country and are never seen again. Of those, a large number enter the homeless population. My own mother suffered from vascular dementia. One day, she packed a small bag and, with no identification and just enough money for a one-way bus ticket, trekked to the bus station and bought a ticket to Savannah, Georgia. She didn’t know a soul there, but had recently seen some photographs of the place and decided to go.
She couldn’t have told you where she belonged. And, at the rate her mind was disintegrating, she was so paranoid that she wouldn’t have trusted the police or any official. My mother was on her way to becoming a street person.
Fortunately for us, a friend of our family saw her entering the bus station and called us, so we were able to forestall her disappearing act. If she’d been successful, we would have been dealing with a nightmare. I am not sure we would ever have found our mother.
But Safely Home helps in that regard. And guess what? We have similar program right here in the United States. It’s through the Alzheimer’s Association and it’s called “Safe Return.” For a fee, afflicted family members can be registered in a confidential nationwide database accessed by matching up information on a bracelet. In other words, we have the same program that Australia has created independently. I wish I’d known about this when my mom was alive.
I’m betting a lot of law enforcement, as well as families of individuals suffering from dementia, are not aware of this program’s existence. I also think it would be a great program to extend to the mentally ill. Think how many tragedies could be avoided.
Solutions to current problems are out there. It’s simply a matter of connecting the dots.
