Please support the Mason Alert!

Post Reply New Topic

What is the Mason Alert? Well, it's similar to the Amber Alert, only it's geared specifically toward missing Autistic children, AND, it doesn't yet exist. IMHO, it should.

Such an alert COULD have saved this child's life.



When Autistic kids go missing, fast response is often not enough. Emergency personnel need to know HOW to respond. For Autistic kids, it's not routine. They need to know how to react to the specific child. I signed the petition. It's a GOOD idea, and could have saved that poor kid's life.

You can read about how the idea for it came about (a MUST read!), and how it differs from existing missing child alerts here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/sign-t ... nup-sheet/

The story is for real folks.

For verification:

http://www.justice4caylee.org/child-adv ... -t7895.htm

http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/1004 ... ml?ref=609



Also, if you could take a few minutes to repost this on other forums, FB, MySpace, and wherever else you may frequent on the web, if will really help her get the one million signatures she's hoping for. Let's help her get there. I honestly think this is one cause we should all be able to get behind no matter what our views are on other matters. Thanks.

crap idea... just issue an amber alert stating the child is autistic. Making a whole new alert is just confusing.

ZachL, I find it hard to believe that if you read the story you would have reached that conclusion. Please read it. You might change your mind.

I read the story then came up with the conclusion.

You assuming that I didn't read the story just because I disagree with you is rather shallow.

I actually agree with Zach. Most of the 'Mason' protocols seem to be the same as those that should be followed for any missing kid (i.e. tell the police whatever you can about the child).

The child described acted like a pretty normal 5 year old getting into mischief, it was just unfortunate that this time it had tragic results.

I'm no expert, but the amount of briefing that seems to be required here is far too much. In a missing person situation, you want to find the child and grab him ASAP, not write a thesis on the kid.

Adding red tape such as only 'caregivers' being allowed/recommended to catch the child just seems like getting in the way. Also, who is to say what constitutes 'danger'? I can just see some unscrupulous people turning round and suing the rescuers, leading to people being less inclined to help in future.

Also, as Zach says, people will get confused with different codes. What happens if other minorities/disabilities start wanting ones too?

All in all, in my opinion, the idea seems the gut reaction to a tragic loss of a family member, which is understandable, but not, in the scheme of things, very workable.

Well, then you didn't, it seems to me, take all the circumstances into consideration. It's fine if you don't agree with it, but to state flatly that it's crap is a very rude way to respond, to be quite honest. You responded far too quickly with your "crap" opinion of the idea to have possibly given it much thought at all.

Autistic children are NOT like typical children. If the emergency respondents in Mason's case had understood anything about Mason, they may have saved his life instead of standing around hollering, expecting him to respond and most normal children would, not understanding that he doesn't even respond to his own mother when she's standing right next to him. Yes, there is no guarantee he would have been saved, but clearly the response they did use was NOT effective. A Mason alert, as she described it, would have been clearly MORE effective.

I didn't assume you hadn't read it because you disagreed with me. I assumed you didn't, because it is simply unfathomable to me that anyone, especially anyone who understands Autism, could read it, and not see that the details of the alert are a good idea.

The point is to give the police and rescue workers not just a picture of the child, but details about his/her Autism. Things like whether to even try approaching the child, based on whether the child may be likely to run unless there are specific people approaching them. That kind of information is incredibly important to understand. Knowing whether the child may react violently even to people in uniform if the child doesn't know them, is important too. Tracking down, following, or chasing a child that may not react as normally expected, can be extremely dangerous. The child may, instead of cooperating as expected, take off and get themselves into dangerous and life threatening situations.

Emergency respondents armed with knowledge are going to be far more effective than respondents armed only with typical expectations.

I really think if you take the time to consider everything in the article, you might change your mind. Then again, you might not, and that's fine. A simple "I think the Amber Alert is enough" would have sufficed. "Crap idea" is just plain rude, and uncalled for.

the zach is mad because he didn't come up with this idea first and use it at his blog, zach, if you don't like it then ignore the thread, theres no reason to troll the OP

I think its a great idea, maybe it should be combined with the amber alert

Am I the only one here seeing that what she wants is for emergency respondents to be a little better educated on how to deal with a missing Autistic kid?

Am I the only one who noticed that in her case, they were standing around calling his name, getting NO responses, and NOT listening to his mother when she specifically TOLD them to check the pond? These problems happened because they thought they knew how to handle the situation. Obviously they DIDN'T.

"In a missing person situation, you want to find the child and grab him ASAP, not write a thesis on the kid."

I would think so too! So, if that's the case, then why were they standing around the house hollering, not listening to what she told them, instead of rushing across the street like she asked them to do? That does NOT sound like, "Let's get out there and find him ASAP" mentality!

Yes, it IS her reaction to her tragic situation, but it's not exactly knee jerk. She put a lot of careful thought into the specific types of information that should be known by personnel. It's NOT a lot of information. It's only information that would help them understand the nuances of the child, where they might most likely find them, etc. It wouldn't take an hour long briefing to go over that information. What she is suggesting could be done over the radio while the responders are driving to the location. Even the pictures can be transmitted directly into cruiser's computers now days.

IMHO, fear of litigation as a reason not to do something like this, is just ridiculous. That, to me, is akin to saying that avoiding the threat of litigation is worth risking lives.

Well, NO it isn't.

Couldn't the same thing be accomplished by keeping a Safe Kids ID packet on hand? We had one for our daughter. It's a packet you can get from the local police or order from the web link below that includes a fingerprint card, and DNA collection (that's a new addition). The parents add a recent photo (school photo is fine), a written description of the child and any habits or favorite places that might help find a missing child. The parents keep the packet in their possession until it's needed, then they give it to police and searchers to make it easier to locate and identify the child. There's no need for a new alert system, just for parents to keep this kind of information handy in case it's needed, since it's harder to remember and pull all of this together once the child is already missing.

Link: McGruff Safe Kids ID Kits

We actually have something like that in our home town, initiated by the schools. The problem is, things like it do exist locally all over the country. What she wants is to initiate something like that nationally.

BTW: I do think it would be a great idea for the idea to be expanded to include specifics about other disabilities and specific personality traits of the missing child, not matter what the disability is.

Amber Alerts are geared toward children that are suspected to have been abducted.

Amber Alert Page

They aren't geared toward the dangers a child with a disability might face due to traits that cause them to be unaware of everyday life threatening dangers.

Ok seeing as your want to go this way I'll spell it out for you.

I read quickly and am very blunt. As someone who has had some first responder training I also know how first responders handle Amber Alerts which also adds to my opinion that its crap,



If the originating jurisdiction would of stated he was autistic in their alert this issue would of been dealt with. Creating a new alert would just cause more confusion and a much less effective response. First responders have to many codes, abbreviations and signals to deal with anyway and as many first responders deal with multiple jurisdictions they have several different sets of codes to deal with.

I'll give you an example I'll give you a few of the differences between my area and others.

10-33 in my area means traffic stop. In New York City it means Explosive Device.
10-25 in my area means drunk driver. In New York it means child abuse.
10-14 in my area means status in LA it means escort

Some jurisdictions such as the Michigan State Police have to deal with different 10 codes for each county they patrol and often units are paroling 4 counties at once. Adding more codes would just confused them more. Saying Amber Alert for Autistic Child would be adequate and get the point across as needed.


Well perhaps you need to re-fathom


The fact the child is autistic and the special circumstances, handling a precautions of the case should be included in the Amber Alert. When an Amber Alert is issued not only does the law enforcement get the full text nationwide, the public does as well as the news media. Ever hear of don't fix something that is not broke?

Which is why the information should be included in the amber alert.

I still think its a crap idea. The reason i said its a crap idea is its counter productive and would just cause more confusion.

For your reference I've attached a recently issues Amber Alert. This is the text that the public, media, and police get. You can see there is plenty of places where special circumstances can be added.

No its counter productive. Thats why I think its crap.

ZachL, thank you for the very well thought out response. Though I still think the repeated use of the word crap is juvenile and uncalled for, the rest of your post offers a lot of valuable insight. However there still seems to be something missing in the Amber Alert that could have helped this child and mother.

Again, the Amber Alert is for suspected abductions. How does that help a child who is not suspected to have been abducted?

Also, there is nothing in the Amber Alert that allows for inclusion of important information about the child's personality traits that may present more dangers than normally anticipated by respondents.

I can appreciate your insight as an emergency responder, however, and completely understand your points about too many different protocols. Rather than simply dismiss the idea as crap though, wouldn't it be more productive to suggest ways in which any existing deficiencies might be corrected? I'm certainly open to other ideas. Perhaps certain valuable aspects of the Mason Alert idea could be included in the existing alert? Why limit the Amber alert to be so specific (Suspected abductions), when there are so many other dangers a missing child could face?

How would YOU prevent what happened to Mason? (Assuming, of course, it could have been prevented ~ I'll admit that, yes, it is altogether possible he had drowned before anyone showed up, however we don't know that for sure, and it sure seems like SOMETHING should have been done differently.)

I'm hoping that rather than simply shooting down an idea, you might offer constructive alternatives.

I think it's a bad idea.

ZachL spelled it out quite well. Too many different kinds of alerts just confuse people and add no new helpful information. An alert that signifies "missing special needs child" adds no new useful information. The useful information is contained entirely in the memorandums that would theoretically accompany this alert-in this case "Mason is attracted to water" and other info about him. Why couldn't this sort of importnat information be sent to first responders under an Amber Alert code? Is there something in the Amber Alert protocols that prevents it?

You know that old saying about "meet one autistic person, you've met one autistic person". Well here that saying is literally a matter of life and death. Giving first responders the incorrect idea that there is some sort of response methodology that will work better with all missing autistic kids is a bad idea. And that's what this does. It encourages first responders to think of autistic kids as being different from NT kids in a uniformly specific way that requires a Mason Alert protocol. But they aren't. They are individuals. EVERYBODY is an individual. When an Amber Alert goes out, the kid's picture is included. Rather than requiring first responders to carry around two sets of response protocols in their heads: NT and AS (the AS ones only working on the handful of kids who happen to conform to how the protocols are written), I think it would be a better idea to just simply include the relevent information with the kid's picture under an Amber Alert.

I think that rather than making a whole new code, Amber Alert should be ammended to include important information that first responders need and to have it apply to missing as well as abducted children.

The good thing about Amber Alert is that it involves the public. Limiting it to abductions makes no sense to me in any case because a child who has wandered away can be just as rescued buy an alert citizen as a child who has been abducted. I think that Amber Alert should apply to any child gone missing and that it should have crucial info for first responders included with the child's photo. I do not think a new code should be created because there are, as ZachL pointed out, a perilously large number of codes already.

Janissy, you are missing the point. It's not about giving responders a blanket methodology with which to track all missing Autistic kids. The WHOLE PREMISE behind the Mason Alert is to give responders INDIVIDUALIZED personality traits of the child they are seeking, provided by the parents.

I think it would be better to amend Amber Alert to make it possible for parents to do that. I have no idea why it's currently impossible but whatever the reason is, it's beaurocratic not technical. I do not think that creating a whole new alert is a better solution than amending the existing one.