WA Police collaborate with MedicAlert and Autism Association on safety device

WA Police has collaborated with the Australia Medic Alert Foundation (MedicAlert Foundation) and the Autism Association of Western Australia to launch the Safe and Found initiative to support West Australians with autism who might be at risk of becoming lost or reported missing.

 

The initiative will be of interest to those who work with children with autism who have a tendency to wander or abscond from early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. 

 

The partnership, WA Police Inspector, Emergency Management and Specialist Support Division, Steve Scott said, is an important extension of the Autism Association’s existing partnership with WA Police.

 

Safe and Found is proving highly successful in supporting police to more rapidly locate missing Australians through having immediate access to critical information in search operations.

 

“The relationship with the Autism Association of WA is a valuable one in promoting Safe and Found and a natural progression on the success of the Autism Alert Card, which currently alerts emergency services that the card holder has autism and may require additional support. By working together on Safe and Found, we can better understand the characteristics of the people who we might be searching for,” Inspector Scott said.

 

As part of the partnership, the Autism Association is working with the policy to train them to better understand the characteristics of autism. Since launching in August 2021 Safe and Found has yielded eight successful search outcomes, including one instance with a twelve year old boy in December 2021 where having access to personalised information about the child in his lost person behaviour profile enabled police to target their approach

 

For further information on the Safe and Found Autism Association of WA partnership, please see here.