Cape CopCast
Welcome to "The Cape CopCast," the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department.
Hosted by Officer Mercedes Simonds, and Lisa Greenberg from our Public Affairs team, this podcast dives into the heart of Cape Coral PD's public safety, community initiatives, and the inner workings of our police department. Each episode brings you insightful discussions, interviews with key community figures, and expert advice on safety.
Cape CopCast
Spectrum Alert for People with Autism ft. Family Initiative
When a child with autism wanders away from safety, every second counts. Now, thanks to Florida's new Spectrum Alert system, there's a structured response that could save lives.
In this episode of the Cape CopCast, the Cape Coral Police Department welcomes Family Initiative Vice President Anjali Van Drie and Director of Community Development Stephanie Hoffman to discuss this crucial safety development. Family Initiative, celebrating a decade of service in Cape Coral, has witnessed firsthand how the prevalence of autism has skyrocketed from 1 in 110 to 1 in 31 children. This non-profit's comprehensive approach includes everything from clinical services and a specialized K-12 school to community programs for individuals of all ages on the spectrum.
The conversation centered on Florida's Spectrum Alert system, which launched July 1st. Similar to Amber and Silver Alerts, this notification system activates when a person with autism elopes—a frighteningly common occurrence that affects over 50% of individuals with autism. What makes this particularly dangerous in Southwest Florida? Water attraction. Many children with autism are drawn to water for sensory reasons, and with Cape Coral's abundant canals and waterways, the risk is significant. Last year alone, over 60% of childhood drowning deaths in Florida involved children with autism.
This partnership goes beyond alerts. The Cape Coral Police Department is implementing scannable identification bracelets and receiving specialized training from Family Initiative to better interact with nonverbal individuals. Meanwhile, Stephanie Hoffman shared both professional and personal perspectives as both an organization leader and mother to a child with autism, offering practical safety measures families can implement: specialized locks, alarms, tracking devices, and proactively introducing children to neighbors and "safe strangers" like police officers.
Perhaps most important was the reassurance that parents should call police immediately when a child wanders—not wait until they've exhausted their own search efforts. Officers would much rather respond and find a child already safe than arrive too late; their goal is safety, not judgment.
Reach out to the Cape Coral Police Department or Family Initiative to learn more about Spectrum Alert and available resources. Together, we're building a community where our most vulnerable members are protected through understanding, preparation, and swift action.
Learn more about Family Initiative here: https://www.fi-florida.org/
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast.
Speaker 2:I'm one of your hosts Lisa Greenberg and I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Today we have two amazing guests from Family Initiative and I don't want to spoil anything, so I will just let them introduce themselves and their organization Perfect.
Speaker 3:Awesome. So I'm Anjali Vandri, one of the co-founders and vice president of Family Initiative. I'm Stephanie.
Speaker 4:Hoffman, and I'm Anjali Vandery, one of the co-founders and vice president of Family Initiative.
Speaker 1:I'm Stephanie Hoffman and I'm the director of community development. We're so excited to have you. We usually have people on from our department A couple of times we've done some partnerships, like with the fire department, but this is the first time that we've been able to do something like this. We thought it was really important to have Family Initiative on because of everything that you guys do and how involved you are with our community and how it relates to us. So if you could just start by giving us a brief overview of family initiative and what you guys do, sure.
Speaker 3:I will do my best to keep it brief, but we do a lot of things I love talking about it.
Speaker 3:We're a nonprofit organization based here out of Cape Coral, so we actually started like 10 years ago in 2015, really to support the autism community across the region. So we have a whole array of community-based programs, which are either free or low cost, every day of the week. Basically, that are social skills groups, art programming, sports programs, sibling groups, parent groups, all sorts of things that are running during the week and that's really to give our kids and our families opportunities to come together, learn skills in a fun and exciting way. So whatever they like to do, we try to create opportunity for that. We also provide clinical services, so applied behavior analysis and occupational therapy. So we have a large team of clinicians that every day are out there working in schools, in the community, in home and our locations, wherever we can to help support families. We have a private school, so we started that about two and a half years ago, so this is our second full year in our location.
Speaker 3:So we were excited to just kick off the school year. So that's a private autism specialty school that is now kindergarten through 12th, so, yeah, so it's all ages and our programs are really for everyone. So we start with our babies, so we have free screenings and a baby MA program all the way through our teens and young adults, so we have programs for them as well as like workforce development and job opportunities.
Speaker 3:So we do a lot as the prevalence of autism has increased we've definitely increased the number of families we serve and adding on the programs. So when we started the prevalence was about one in 110. And last year the CDC reported the prevalence is one in 31.
Speaker 1:So it's definitely increased significantly over the last decade and continues to rise and you guys are based here in Cape Coral. So, it's nice for families living here in the Cape to have that resource available.
Speaker 2:And you guys said that people actually move from other states to come here for your guys' program, which I think is great. There's not a lot of resources in communities in general specifically for that. I think they get thrown into schools and maybe kind of of lost along the way, probably. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's cool we have. I think one of my favorite stories is one of the families who did relocate here. They're from New York and it was cute because she's like everyone told me, don't move to Florida, they have terrible resources, and she's like joke's on you, I got the best services down here, so she's thrilled about it. So it's cool to hear that and we're happy we can fill that gap for families.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I know one of the main things we wanted to make sure we talked to you guys about, and what's actually great is you guys came to us and we're like we would like to talk about this on the podcast, which I think is awesome. We're happy to provide that channel to the community to talk about this, because it is so important. We wanted to talk about Spectrum Alert, and I think this is extremely important. This is something that went into effect on July 1st, but correct me if I'm wrong the cities and everyone that's taking part in this. They have a whole year to kind of get their feet under them when it comes to this. Tell me about Spectrum Alert, though.
Speaker 3:Sure, so I'll tell it from my perspective. And then, steph, if you, want to join in.
Speaker 3:Spectrum Alert was part of a bill that was passed this past legislative session and really the intent of the alert was just like we have, like the Amber Alerts and Silver Alerts is to create an alert system for individuals with autism when they elope or leave or wander off.
Speaker 3:So over 50% of individuals with autism are known to elope and I think, despite all the best efforts, families put into place and Stephanie and I had some really good conversations about this and there's a lot of families we work with that have this anxiety about their child leaving without an adult. Having a resource like this which, very quickly, that law enforcement is able to put out, that alert same channels, like those other alerts, that notifies everyone in our community that there's a child with autism who has wandered off or has eloped, I think it's huge to get the word out there. I know there's a lot of additional things that are with it some of the training components and communications part of it, which we're just really excited about to bring more resources and awareness to the autism community and do work together to help keep kids and families safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was the best thing about you guys coming to us is we need training on these things. It's not like we're automatically experts. I mean, we have crisis intervention training in place. They've offered classes for advanced CIT specializing in autism, but that only goes so far. It isn't until you guys come into play that we get the personal stories and experiences to be able to apply to law enforcement, because it gives us a hands-on learning, essentially with you guys who have the knowledge and expertise and local feedback to bring to the table. So like, for instance, within Cape Coral, we know we have a ton of water and a ton of canals, and you guys know that kids who wander are often attracted to water. So that specific knowledge to this exact area is going to be one of those things that's really helpful. That'll hopefully save lives.
Speaker 4:No for sure and unfortunately, like you mentioned with the water, it's everywhere. Unfortunately, an elopement can happen anywhere. It can happen at home, it can be happening when you're out in the community. So that's where we talk about our programs at Family Initiative being a safe place for them. But you also want to be able to take your kids and do things in the community and feel safe at home as well. So just hoping that we can do whatever we can to help educate parents and families on how to keep their kids safe and then working with, obviously, the police department, local authorities, to make sure that we can all come together, because it really truly I always say this it takes a village to keep our kids safe and do what we can do to help whatever we can do to help.
Speaker 1:I think having this spectrum alert in place is so important because it just creates a systematic. This is what you do. This is the different ways that people are going to be notified. It's not just like, oh okay, someone's missing, we got to find them. What's next? It creates like the plan, which I think is helpful in keeping the situation uniform, organized. All of that, all the notification that gets out.
Speaker 2:It's also great because you guys know your kids, so you know who's local. So if we're like they're missing, I don't know anything about them you guys do, so you're very familiar. It's just a quick phone call of hey, this is who's missing. What should we know? Absolutely, and that's completely something that's priceless.
Speaker 3:And I know for us over the years, because we do have such a great relationship with your department, we've had law enforcement call and say we found an individual who's nonverbal, can you help. And I think because we are such a close community, we've been able to reach out and, even if we don't know who the child is, to be able to reach out to other people we know who might some of the group home providers, things like that agency for persons with disabilities, some of the schools, and be able to quickly work together to help. And one of the things I know we were talking about, the elopement and the water thing. I think for us that's why part of why this is so important, because so many of our kids are drawn to those water sources as like a sensory thing, because it is very calming and it is a find our kids quickly. We were looking at the data of like the over a hundred kids that were a drowning death last year in the state of Florida. Over 60% of those are children with autism.
Speaker 3:So, that is an anxiety I know we live with, that our families live with. So anything we as a community can do to help minimize that and help support the families who are doing it like I said, everything they can to keep their kids safe is a huge accomplishment and we're super grateful to the legislators and the governor who signed this bill into law to be able to help more families.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely, and to act quickly because, unfortunately, time is of the essence when things like this happen. So then you have a plan. Like you said, it's a process and you guys are more helpful on knowing what you're dealing with, who to communicate with if the child is verbal or nonverbal, who the parents are. These are all just important, quick questions that we need to hopefully work through quickly.
Speaker 1:And I know you come at this from multiple perspectives, because not only do you work with Family Initiative, but you said that your child has autism as well, correct, yes, correct.
Speaker 4:So seeing something like this, she's a lot smaller, so she's only three, and so it's been a learning curve for me as a parent and for joining the team at Family Initiative to see with all of our kids like it's truly a spectrum.
Speaker 4:So every kid is so different and has different challenges and behaviors. But, that being said, it's really helpful to work with these families to create a plan that's best for your child. Do you know that your child is prone to just walk out the front door, which mine is? So you have to make sure to have those appropriate locks and boundaries and barriers and when you're traveling, if you're in an Airbnb which I've learned about recently as well or anywhere that you're going, making sure it's safe for your child. So it's just creating those education with the families to think about things. Families are overwhelmed. Parents are overwhelmed. They're worrying about school and therapies and all kinds of things. Just making sure this stays on top of conversation, because we want to make sure every kid is safe.
Speaker 1:I would think as a parent too, having this spectrum alert now in place and developing is probably a comfort to you as well.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, and we kind of we discussed a little bit too more about how this can even grow farther in alerting your neighbors, talking to them, this is what my child faces. If you see them outside, can you please let me know? Here's my cell phone number, here's their photo, and just all coming together as a community between the neighborhoods, the police, family initiative, any other organizations that want to help, because I think if we all work together, these kids will be brought home a lot quicker and safer, for sure.
Speaker 1:I know we talked to you guys too about bringing you guys in for an added level of training for our officers and that's something that I know we're actively pursuing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's something that we want to brag on you guys about is you came to us and you said hey, we're willing to offer you absolutely free training. We just want to get involved with you and help out. So I think what we're going to do, I think what we've worked out on our side, is to do in-service training, because it's not just roll call that only patrol gets, it's something that all of us get, to include all the school resource officers too, which I think is invaluable right.
Speaker 2:Even if somebody doesn't go to your school, they probably go to a school with kids with autism and it's just good to know who all's involved, what to look for, because I've ran into on patrol kids that we found that are nonverbal and it's kind of a challenge initially of who is this? Where do they live? How do we get in contact with the parents when they can't tell you their name? And who is this? Where do they live? How do we get in contact with the parents when they can't tell you their name and who they are? And one of the things that we're working on our end is getting these bracelets that have the ability, if you scan it, it'll pop up with all of their information, which I think is really great. That's something that we're working on as a resource to the community, because I think just something like that, when there is a whole entire language barrier there in place to just help us out, and that's another one of those things with parents for them to know, when we come in contact with your kid, you can always just call the police station and we can take down the information photo, everything like that, because just that's another step in in letting us know who your kid is, for us to document, especially if they're prone to wandering. We want to know who those kids are where they live, so that if something happens, we immediately know who it is, who their parents are and who to call, so that we can get them to their safe place so much faster. Because all the parents know their kids far better than we ever could, and you're their place of comfort too. So the faster that we can get them home, the better.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it's cool, I think, for us. We're honored to partner with you guys because I think what we love so much about being able to do this work in our community is how accepting and inclusive they are, and I think we're always looking for opportunities to share education and awareness. We do a ton of training. We're always open to doing that and partnering, because autism occurs across every socioeconomic status, with every race, every ethnicity. I mean it is something that when you talk to families these days, everybody has some sort of interaction, whether it be within their family or within their place of work.
Speaker 3:That I feel like it's definitely become more prevalent. So the more that we can come together and help support. We've been lucky. We do a lot of training and I think what's cool when we do the training, the more we talk about it, the more people feel comfortable saying, hey, that is something I'm dealing with. I do need help, but I think for us to come together and build those resources to help support, because we want to live in a place where everyone feels safe and included and comfortable.
Speaker 2:So I think it's been cool to be able to work together with agencies like yours to be able to create those spaces well, I think that's one of, like, my favorite things is you guys are really good about inviting us to different events that you have, which is great because I know like the whole uniform, especially with the outer tactical vest. Sometimes I'm sure that can be a little bit intimidating for kids who might not understand. So having us be more involved and the kids getting to know us and know what the uniform looks like and hey, don't touch this um, that one's important because I mean, because you know they it's, it's their sensory thing, sometimes they just want to touch, so knowing, hey, don't touch this, but this person is safe for you is so important we were talking about that.
Speaker 3:That's one of the things like we work with our kids on who's a safe stranger. So if they are out and get separated from their family, who do you go to, who can you trust, and so we do a lot of work. So it's been fantastic. I know we've had members from the police department out all summer long to meet with our kids and hang out and not just like in a formal way but just spend time together so they do get to know different officers and get to spend time with them and know this is a person I could go to if I need help. So because I think for any of us reaching out to law enforcement, it can be intimidating and particularly when you're in the moment where you need that is usually a stressful situation. So to help our kids understand these are people who are going to help us and who are there to protect us and be a safe stranger, I think is huge for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, For those who are not involved in your school but involved in the community with autism, feel free to introduce yourself to any officer that you see and we're more than happy to talk to you, interact with you. Some officers may have stickers, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Toy cars.
Speaker 3:That's awesome, all the cool stuff For sure.
Speaker 1:Well, and we?
Speaker 4:briefly talked a little bit, and the kids obviously have their sometimes fears when you see all the uniforms and badges and things. But sometimes parents are nervous to talk with the police as well, Especially when something like that happens. If a child elopes out of your home, you feel like you know you did something wrong as a parent and you're afraid to call or maybe talk about this and how to prevent it the next time. So we just want to make sure that parents feel safe to talk about because this unfortunately is common but how to prevent it so it doesn't happen again, and then get the proper places and people in place to stop it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know, while we have people listening, I think it's really important to reiterate some of the tips and information that you guys tell parents and other family members when it comes to this.
Speaker 3:So I think there's a number of safety measures and a lot of this depends on your child and knowing your child. So I know there's different sorts of quote tracking sort of devices. So there's some pretty advanced ones which are pricey, but I know some of our families do purchase those because their child's behavior is pretty intense and they want to make sure they have all that. So there are ones that you can pay for all the way down to ones that are free. I know we talked about even with some of the smartwatches and things like that. Some of our kids will wear those. It's hard because those tracking devices are a sensory thing. So to make sure our kids keep those on, we were talking a couple of our families that we've worked with sew in pockets into the clothing or into the backpack so they can put in devices there so they can help if their child does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if their child does a little. But I think those safety precautions, the locks I mean some of our families will have the keyed locks on both sides or higher up locks, the cameras in the home and alert, like alarms, so when you open the door it notifies you that the door or window is open. But, like Stephanie said, even getting to know your neighbors and saying, hey, this is our family, this is my child, if you see him, please call me, call law enforcement. He shouldn't be outside. This is his name.
Speaker 3:Here's some of the things he likes just to, because we also don't want our kids to feel like they're in trouble when they're out. We want to make sure that we're trying to protect them too. So, having everyone understand that I know we've had some experiences in the past where one of our young people did leave the house and they were in their neighbor's garage and the poor family was looking everywhere but they had, like, cool stuff in their garage, so he just wanted to check it out. So, understanding, our kids are exploring and it's not like they're trying to do anything nefarious or bad like they're really just exploring.
Speaker 3:I may not understand that they're very inquisitive.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, yes, I want to explore and want to explore exactly, and unfortunately they don't understand what is could be harmful or not safe. Um, so it's just up to us to try to protect them as a community. So anything that we can do to help, share and educate, it's just so helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and it's nice that if all of that fails right, if the locks and the alarms and the air tags and the neighbors and all that, there is this spectrum alert that's going into place, that will help. And then, of course, once we get there, the bracelets I think will be super helpful and of course, once that does become available within our department, we're going to blast that out, we're going to partner with you guys to make sure it gets to the right families and all of that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and we're not judging if your kid gets out or whatever. We're here for you, we're here. We're like. We send everybody that we have. The fire department comes out to help. That's our top priority is to get your kids safe. So don't wait to call. I know a lot of people try to just check everywhere and then call. Don't do that. We want to help. We would love to help, because the sooner they get home, the safer they are.
Speaker 1:Exactly. We would rather show up and they're found and everything's safe and good, than wait too long and show up and it'd be a different story.
Speaker 4:So good, then wait too long and show up and it'd be a different story. So that's great to hear, and I'm sure a lot of parents need that reassurance. So it's so wonderful to hear that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Well, we are so glad that you guys could join us today. I think this is a great partnership that we really enjoy having. What a blessing to have a local place, a local partnership, that we have to cross-reference everything that we have, because we don't know everything. You guys are the subject matter experts.
Speaker 1:You guys are doing a great job. Seriously, thank you Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, guys so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we will see you next time. If you're listening or watching, have a good one, stay safe.
