This introductory presentation welcomes the participant to the course and outlines the goals and objectives it sets forth for Public Safety Telecommunicators in becoming optimally prepared to effectively handle calls and incidents of missing, exploited, and abducted children and AMBER Alerts.

How does the crime of child abduction affect the family? This presentation gives participants an opportunity to hear first-hand how family members cope with the pain and anguish of the search for an abducted child. Their experiences can help first responders improve their response to future cases involving missing and abducted children. This is why we are here.

Participants will receive information regarding incident types, victim and family risk factors, offender behaviors and incident timelines in order to effectively utilize concrete, operational response tactics aligned to the complex dynamics of missing and abducted child cases. Federal statutes which apply to missing child incidents will be outlined, with explanation of how these mandates affect the processes first responders execute. The AMBER Alert’s function as a mechanism for rapid public notification, and how these alerts support the foundational enforcement and investigative processes undertaken by law enforcement, will be discussed.

The APCO-ANS 1.101: National Standard for Public Safety Telecommunicators When Responding to Incidents of Missing, Abducted and Sexually Exploited Children, will be discussed, with a focus on the model policy and call intake protocol guidelines to support first response operations carried out by telecommunicators and responding officers in the field.

The APCO-ANS 1.101: National Standard for Public Safety Telecommunicators When Responding to Incidents of Missing, Abducted and Sexually Exploited Children, will be discussed, with a focus on the model policy and call intake protocol guidelines to support first response operations carried out by telecommunicators and responding officers in the field.

Participants will be led through a review of the NCIC Reference Guide for Effective Use of NCIC with Missing Child Incidents published by NCMEC and AMBER Alert, to support effective gathering, formatting and entry of information into NCIC, along with other important data query and management considerations.

This final presentation will provide information on how to access resources from the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program, the National Criminal Justice Training Center, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Final questions will be discussed. Required post-course activities will be explained, including how course evaluations and certificates of attendance will be processed.