A Salina business and a national organization whose mission is to keep children safe are teaming up for an event. This coming weekend Long McArthur and Operation Kidsafe are working together to present a regional child safety day.
Operation Kidsafe is a child safety organization based in Illinois. It provides free child safety kits to families.
Operation Kidsafe Founder Mark Bott, a child safety expert who helped found the Amber Alert Program, tells KSAL News that the program is very simple. They create a “lifetime safety bio-document.” Using the latest all digital systems they capture the fingerprints of each hand, along with a full digital head and shoulder photograph. The information is then printed on hard copy and handed to parents for safe keeping. There is an area on the document for parents to update with a current photo.
Should a child become lost, or even worse, kidnapped, the parent would call 911 and let law enforcement know they have an Operation Kidsafe document. The Police Department will know how to handle it from there.
Bott says that parents don’t need to be concerned about privacy. The only record of the visit goes home with the family. The parents get the print out with the child’s fingerprints and photo. Nothing is saved or archived digitally.
The “Operation Kidsafe Regional Child Safety Day” is being hosted by Long McArthur at 3450 S. 9th Street on Saturday from 9am till noon. The event is free, and all parents need to bring is their children.
