Developmental Wings is hoping to co-sponsor a seminar with local law enforcement agencies to discuss Autism Risk & Safety Issues.  Dennis Debbaudt’s conference sessions are designed to identify issues of risk and provide strategies to help manage ASD risks at home, school and in the community. Every session includes instruction on and information about:

• Common autism behaviors and characteristics
• Public safety issues
• Criminal justice issues
• Wandering, Search and Rescue
• Initial contact options
• Establishing communications
• Behavioral deescalation techniques
• Restraint and arrest options
• Offender and victim trends
• Fire-Rescue and emergency medical response
• Dilemmas and tips in interrogation and interview settings
• Working proactively with families, advocacy organizations and school systems
• Model programs
• Cross educational opportunities

There is a new product called Emfinders. Emfinders utilizes cellular technology so that a search can be performed if someone with Alzheimers/Autism/Dementia wanders off. Emfinders works in coordination nationally with 911 emergency services and is the only device that can find a love one trapped inside or behind a building.

For more information check it out yourself @ http://www.emfinders.com/

BY LAW, AMBER ALERTS CANNOT BE ISSUED FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM WHO HAVE
WANDERED OFF

Your help is needed in getting an alert system in place for children with autism and other disabilities

Dear Friends,

Below is an article in the September issue of The Autism File Magazine regarding the lack of mandated emergency coordination for missing children with autism.


Currently our children are NOT included in the AMBER Alert criteria -- only abducted children qualify. Currently our children are NOT part of the Silver Alert criteria -- only adults with mental impairments qualify.

THERE IS NO EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM IN PLACE FOR MISSING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
OR OTHER DISABILITIES!

It is our hope that National Legislation will be introduced by a willing legislator who can make sure an alert system with mandated emergency search efforts is in place for these children.

Please send this article to your legislator, along with any personal stories you may want to share. Follow this link to retrieve your legislators' contact information:  Legislator Contact information

Ask them for an alert system in your area -- ask for their help in getting federal legislation introduced that will guide states in implementing an alert system nationwide. It is necessary and important that our children have mandated resources in place to help ensure their safe return home.


By Lori McIlwain. Article courtesy of
The Autism File Issue 29, Autumn 2008, www.autismfile.com

As the warmer months roll in, so do summer camps, open windows and flimsy screen doors. Longer recesses in the late school months. More outdoor gatherings. More chances for a child with autism to wander.
It’s only logical an increase of disappearances and deaths would happen in our community. With one in 150 children now diagnosed, and 92% of them prone to wandering according to an online survey conducted by the National Autism Association, children with autism are at more risk for wandering-related deaths than ever. But if you think the AMBER Alert system will help recover our missing children, don’t.
As we learned last year following the disappearance of Benjy Heil, the seven-year-old who wandered from his Michigan home, only abducted children qualify. I recall the update from a search team member: “Benjy was last seen by a neighbor on the road, the neighbor told him to get off the road or he'll get hit.”… “I asked the police why they didn't send out an AMBER Alert. They said he didn't meet criteria."
It’s a common assumption that AMBER Alerts are for all missing children. Named after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman who was abducted and murdered in 1996, AMBER is also an acronym for "America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response." Whenever we see an AMBER Alert, we’re given a description of a missing child, along with any other relevant information. In 2006, there were 261 AMBER Alerts issued, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Children were recovered on the same day of the Alert in 106 of the cases, with the majority being found within the same city they were reported missing. Eleven of the 261 cases crossed state lines.

Could An Amber Alert System
Help Our Children?
One can’t help wondering if an AMBER Alert would have helped Benjy. Maybe the neighbor would have known to call 911. Benjy’s body was found a few days later in a creek.
According to a study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Shavelle, et al, 2001), elevated death rates among those with autism were in large part attributed to drowning. Drownings typically happen after a child with autism has wandered. In the past four years alone, at least 14 children with autism under age 12 have died as a result of wandering.
A couple of months after Benjy’s death, my own child went missing. Same age, same diagnosis. He managed to escape a schoolyard – wandering close to an hour before a gentleman found him. “I almost didn’t stop,” the man told me. “He looked like he could’ve been old enough to walk alone, he was heading towards Davis Drive.” (Davis, one of the busiest four lane roads in our town.) In his thick Brooklyn accent, he explained he was going to buy stamps, and although he drove past Connor, he figured he’d turn the car around to “get a better look.” Once he realized Connor was missing, he called the local authorities.
That night I went from restlessly lying in bed, to sitting up. I wrapped my forearms around my knees, rocking, sobbing. Benjy Heil’s mother didn’t have what I had. Come dark, her child was still missing. Come three days, her child was dead.
Like any parents, my husband Christian and I fear the worst each time Connor leaves our home. He’s wandered a total of seven times, each time from the classroom or playground of three different schools. We’ve taken detailed measures to ensure his safety, including fighting for a one-on-one and enrolling him in the Project Lifesaver program, which provides a tracking transmitter that Connor now wears around his wrist. Most Sheriff offices do not participate in Project Lifesaver due to lack of funding, so it’s only available to a select few. Having an organized Alert system in place would help compensate for the lack of programs like Project Lifesaver.
I’ve thought about Benjy from time and time, and Logan Mitcheltree, who wandered from his Pennsylvania home in 2004. He was nine and died from prolonged exposure to the cold. I’ve kept a well-worn news photo of him at my desk as a reminder. Being a child advocate and part of the National Autism Association, it’s children like this that instill the desire to not give up.

A New Alert System Is Created,
But No Children Allowed
It was early May when I was reminded of the AMBER Alert. One had been issued in our area – the details crawled over our evening newscast. I must’ve let out a sigh since Christian asked what was wrong. I explained what happened to Benjy, and how an AMBER Alert could’ve made a difference. He walked to the computer, looked up the AMBER Alert and wrote down the lawmakers most involved with its enactment.
I’d been down this road before. Calling legislators. Asking their receptionist for the right staffer. Getting voicemail and a callback born out of obligation more than compassion. All reasons to procrastinate. Then a few days later I noticed a different Alert on my TV screen. A Silver Alert. Although I’d never heard of it, I understood what it meant. A missing senior, likely with Alzheimer’s.
The Silver Alert became effective in my state of North Carolina in 2007. It’s a system that notifies the public about missing endangered adults who suffer from dementia or other cognitive impairments, such as Alzheimer's disease. The only downside to the system? No children allowed.
It prompted me to call one of the names on my list – Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who had helped our cause in the past. Once I got her Judiciary staffer on the phone, I figured it would be a no-brainer. “We need to expand the criteria of the AMBER Alert,” I told him. “Our children need the same recovery measures as seniors with Alzheimer’s, except under the AMBER Alert name. People know it’s for children."
It wasn’t that simple, he explained. AMBER Alert is part of a national communications system. It’s for abducted children that are likely to cross state lines. He added that if too many children were included in the Alert’s criteria, say, for local recovery measures, other groups would want their children added, too. Too many Alerts would result in a desensitized public.
But we’re talking about disabled children. Not teenage runaways. Not prom-goers that missed curfew. The staffer has since not returned my calls or emails. A faxing campaign to Feinstein’s office was initiated. Feinstein replied she would keep our “concerns and suggestions in mind as my staff and I continue to review legislative options on this matter."
Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the Republican Senator from Texas where the AMBER Alert legislation originated, was the second office I phoned. Her staffer was politely dismissive while pointing out several times that I was “the first person to call about this."

Fwd. e-mail:

We moved to a new house late last summer. There are so many flower beds with rocks instead of mulch argh. While they look good, weeds are impossible to get out properly. I tried this yesterday and it worked already, so faster than Roundup. So nice to have my daughter out with me while working on the yard and not worry about chemicals and keeping her in a few days after treating.

one gallon of white vinegar
one cup of table salt
one tblspn of dish liquid

Mixed it in the vinegar bottle and poured in a spray bottle. Don't use in the wind, because you do have to avoid your grass and plants.
Boiling water works great too, cheaper, but much more time intensive.

Yorkregion.com - Richmond Hill - Local mom's homemade child harness shipped around the world
Local mom's homemade child harness shipped around the world
By Kim Zarzour
Published on Apr 19, 2009

Talking with Elaine Whittington is an emotional experience. She moves from jubilation to heartbreak and back again - in seconds

But that's the nature of the path she's chosen: it's hilly, twisty and scenic, full of unexpected surprises. And at times she travels it at breakneck speed. You never know what's around the corner, and she likes it that way.

Back when she was a university student, it was expected Elaine would travel the well-worn path ahead of her: study math, get her degree, work in investment, start a family, settle down - ho hum.

Instead, she chose the fork in the road. Several forks, in fact. And she's never looked back.

The journey started out conventionally enough.

The Richmond Hill native earned her degree in math, got her trading licence, and took a promising job in the investment industry. She worked in an extremely successful investment brokerage, bought herself a car and her own condominium.

"Life was so perfect. Oh my god it was killing me," the lanky Mrs. Whittington runs her hands through cropped blonde hair and laughs. "It was absolutely killing me! I'd reached all these goals I'd set for myself and I just thought, no, this can't be it. Something has to change! So I made a phone call and I was off to Malawi."

The car/condo/career perks, it seems, were not enough.

"I needed an inner challenge to push me to continue to grow."

That new challenge came with a much-reduced paycheque: for $200 a month she'd be teaching in a rural school in central Africa. She loved it there, and when the one-year gig was up, she signed on for four more, this time with UNICEF, educating the community about AIDS.

Five years was all volunteers were permitted to work, though, so she returned to Canada to earn her Masters in Health Sciences in Community Health Epidemiology and worked in research in 'Hospital Alley' in downtown Toronto.

Meanwhile, she'd started running with a running club at the Mill Pond. Turns out those long legs of hers are rather fast. On a lark, she tried a 10-km race in Burlington and won first place. She took part in another race on Centre Island where she got to know Ivan, another runner from the Mill Pond club, and by the end of the day she'd decided this was the guy she was going to marry.

Which she did.

The investment assistant-turned third-world worker-turned researcher and race-runner, now turned into a stay-at-home mom, giving birth in quick succession to two energetic boys -- but her meandering journey hadn't ended yet.

While all this was going on she was caring for her severely disabled sister who had Down Syndrome and an uncorrected hole in her heart.

"She was my best friend; I took her with me everywhere - with oxygen unit, wheelchair - through the forest at the back of the Mill Pond, getting stuck in the mud ... I even took her out on a bike cart behind my bike, with her oxygen tank attached - off we'd go."

At the same time she watched her husband Ivan and his friends train for their Ironman competitions. Being surrounded by such high-calibre athletes was intimidating, so she learned how to swim, took up cycling, and set to training in earnest - pushing her babies up and down the hills in her running stroller. She signed herself up for Ironman Canada, and then in 2007 Ironman Wisconsin - the hardest course on the North American circuit - and she completed both in just over 13 hours.

But having babies taught her something. Life is precious. Too many close calls on foot and cycle with fast-moving cars on Leslie and Bayview convinced her to give it up.

"Death never scared me - I'm excited to see God and get all my questions answered - but as a mom now, it puts a completely different twist on things."

So she left that path - and the Ironman competitions - behind, and took another fork in the road.

Mrs. Whittington loved her Richmond Hill neighbourhood and ability to access nearly everything by foot. But she hated strapping her bouncy energetic boys into a stroller. Whatever happened to harnesses - she wondered - remembering the contraptions that moms used in the '50s and '60s.

Mrs. Whittington finally found one that would keep her boys tethered - but it was made of leather, was stiff, awkward, and extremely difficult to put on. She hated it - but her children loved it and the freedom to ditch the stroller and stretch their legs.

But it wasn't well-made - after three years it was in pieces.

"Now we had to go and spend $25 again to buy another and I hated the thing anyway. So I thought, I can do better than this."

She and her mother picked up supplies at the local Fabricland, and, on her mom's 1946 Singer sewing machine, they designed and created their own child harness.

Mrs. Whittington's version put the buckle in back (so little escape artists couldn't slip free), an O-ring to distribute pressure and a long lead "because they're squatting, looking at ants, picking stuff up off the ground."

It worked beautifully - and that would have been it. The Whittingtons would have happily used their homemade harnesses until the boys outgrew them.

But the path took another unexpected turn.

Walking around town, people kept asking her where she got her harness, and if she'd make them one too. Someone approached her who said he had a friend with a nine-year-old autistic boy; would she consider custom-fitting him?

The autistic boy loved biking - and he loved cars. His mom relied on a rope to keep her son safe, but one day that rope broke and the boy spun across the four-lane Sixteenth Avenue. Cars careened around him, zigzagging and slamming on brakes while his mom raced into traffic to save him. Somehow he made it to the other side where someone grabbed him and pulled him to safety - but his mom was deeply shaken.

"She was telling me all this on the phone and we were both bawling, both just basket cases. I guess because my sister was very disabled, my empathy connection was really strong. Special needs people are important members of our community and they should be out there."

So she took the boy's chest measurements, sent him a harness, and the boy's mom was thrilled.

Mrs. Whittington set up a web page describing the harness and she soon was receiving orders from special needs customers around the world - primarily for children who have multiple diagnoses, most with a combination of autism and ADHD.

And with a few more design modifications, and a mesh storage bag sewn by her mom, she's been churning them out and shipping them out steadily - to 27 states, five countries and six provinces - many of the orders bringing her to tears.

"It's extremely emotional. This poor person is stuck in their body or with a brain that doesn't work properly ... It just blows my mind that something as simple as a harness can make such a big difference in their life."

One autistic child needed the harness to allow him to go out with his new service dog. Another mom of a four-year-old autistic boy raved to her about how the harness allowed her to take him to the park for the first time. "He had a blast."

One boy had a neurological disorder whose face was always bruised because was constantly falling. She redesigned the harness so that the centre of gravity could accommodate his extra-large head, with straps on either side so both parents could walk together and keep their son upright - and bruise-free.

Talking about her customers now, Mrs. Whittington breaks out in tears. "It's so personal. Just heartbreaking; sometimes these people are at their wits' end. It's a very humbling experience every time I get an order, that these are their children and these people are trusting me."

It's doubly ironic that she, the outdoorsy girl who hated Home Economics in school, who wore a pair of sweatpants hemmed with a pin for 12 years because she hated to sew - has created a successful business with a sewing machine.

But that's where this meandering life path has taken her.

"It's all God-driven; I'll just take it where it wants me to go. As long as I can help someone I'm going to keep going."

For more on the harnesses, visit www.childharness.ca