GREENFIELD — A national organization has recognized the Hancock County 911 Center for implementing practices for responding to calls involving young victims.
The 911 center is now certified with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Missing Kid Readiness Program. Hancock County’s center is the sixth in the state and one of 304 agencies certified with the program nationwide. The program promotes best practices for responding to calls involving missing, abducted and sexually exploited children. Certified agencies meet training and policy standards demonstrating preparedness for responses to those kinds of calls.
John Jokantas, Hancock County 911 director, said much of the training addressed what kind of information dispatchers should gather when taking calls involving missing, abducted and sexually exploited children, such as the description of the child and details about when and where they were last seen. The training also led to the 911 center requiring that its quality assurance team ensure proper procedures are followed for such calls, Jokantas continued.
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Another part of the accreditation was drafting a seven-page document outlining the 911 center’s policies for responding to calls involving missing, abducted and sexually exploited children. Jokantas said Lake County, whose 911 center was earlier certified through the program, shared its plan to help serve as the basis for Hancock County’s.
Jokantas and Lacey Ogden, the Hancock County 911 dispatcher who led the training effort, said the practices aren’t all that different from what the local center and others across the county have always done. But the accreditation lets the public know that a third party has vetted the center’s procedures and confirmed staff have undergone the best kind of training, Jokantas said.
“I think you’re proving, too, that you’re dedicated to providing what’s been known as the best standard through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children,” Ogden added. “You’re supporting their vision, and you’re dedicated to providing that service.”
The 911 center’s 20 full-time and seven part-time dispatchers have undergone Missing Kid Readiness Program training, all of which is online and did not cost the center, Jokantas said. He added that the center plans to have future hires go through the training within their first 30 days on the job. In order to keep the accreditation, the center has to be re-certified every five years, he added.
Jokantas took the program’s CEO training in Alexandria, Virginia, last summer, which consisted of a two-day course funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
During the course, parents of victims spoke to attendees.
“That’s really what gave me the push to really want to do this,” Jokantas said.
Ogden said one of the most eye-opening parts of the training was learning of all the resources available for calls involving missing, abducted and sexually exploited children. Those types of calls are unique, she added.
“That’s not something that you think about every day while you’re sitting out there taking tons of different types of calls and scenarios,” Ogden said.
Jokantas said one of the resources available is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children itself, which has volunteer organizations across the country that can mobilize quickly to assist with those types of calls.
As a mother, Ogden said she was personally motivated to lead the training. Before the training began, she emphasized the importance of the extra work to her colleagues.
“We don’t need to be average and just meet the standard; we need to excel and have a policy that supports that,” she said. “So I think once you explain that ‘why,’ then everybody gets on board.”
And it didn’t take long for them to get on board, Ogden continued.
“There’s not a single person on our staff that’s not passionate about what we do and why we sit in those chairs every day,” she said.
