Inside New York’s Missing Persons Alert Overhaul with Tim Williams

How do you write a missing persons alert that actually gets the public to respond?

In this episode of The Alerting Authority, Jeannette Sutton and Eddie Bertola sit down with Tim Williams, Program Manager of the New York State Missing Persons Clearinghouse, to explore how New York is rethinking missing persons messaging, public alerting, and effective communication.

This conversation goes deep into the science behind alert wording, why plain language matters, and how thoughtful messaging can increase public engagement, reduce confusion, and improve outcomes in missing and endangered person cases.

Topics include:

•  How New York reduced alert activation time from hours to minutes 
•  Why “boilerplate” alert messages often fall short 
•  The shift from template-based alerts to skill-based message design 
•  The research behind effective missing persons messaging 
•  Why over-alerting and too many alert names can create confusion 
•  Removing jargon and using plain language the public understands 
•  How New York approaches privacy, dignity, and behavioral descriptions in alerts 
•  Whether details like eye color, vehicle models, and alert labels actually matter 
•  Stakeholder collaboration with broadcasters, emergency managers, DOT, and law enforcement 
•  Public trust, community empowerment, and the future of missing persons alerting 

Tim also shares how the New York State Missing Persons Clearinghouse is setting a national example through policy innovation, public awareness efforts, and evidence-based messaging practices.

If you work in emergency management, public warning, law enforcement, missing persons investigations, or crisis communication, this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply immediately.

Subscribe for more conversations on alerting, warning, emergency communication, and public safety.

#MissingPersons #EmergencyAlerting #PublicWarning #CrisisCommunication #WirelessEmergencyAlerts

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:11

And we welcome you to another episode of the Alerting Authority. And as always, we encourage you to subscribe, follow, listen, and most importantly, participate in these podcasts. We want your questions, concerns, ideas, problems, pain points, success stories so we as alerting authorities can better do our jobs and make our communities safer. This episode is sponsored by the Warn Room. It was launched in 2023 to serve as a bridge between academic research and practical application, where we translate roughly 70 years of research from the social sciences to provide insights on evidence-based guidance for emergency alerts. We focus on improving the effectiveness of short-form messages such as wireless emergency alerts, and we help practitioners to design clear, actionable warnings that reduce public uncertainty and motivate protective behaviors. One of our key professional services is the Warning Boot Camp, where we help practitioners to develop their own templates for different kinds of alerting scenarios, including natural disasters, technological disasters, hazardous materials, missing persons, and all clear messages, and help you to be prepared so that when it's time to issue your alerts, you have the confidence to do so in a timely manner and your public can respond effectively. So please uh consider joining our next boot camp, which is occurring in July, uh the 20th through the 24th, and visit us at thewarnroom.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

So, Jeanette, today we have someone really special on our show, and it's someone that you and I have both worked with for actually, I think, a long time and we've known. He's been in the field. Um, I will give you his bio and then I'll say his name, but you'll probably guess because not only is he on the camera, and you can, if you're watching on YouTube, you already see who it is. Um, but it's someone, if you're following missing um endangered persons and advancements, um, you either know the program or you will get to know the program because they are really pushing the envelope when it comes to the way that they're doing messaging. So I'll just say it is Tim Williams, and so hello. And uh Tim serves as the program manager for the New York State Missing Persons Clearinghouse. He leads efforts to support investigations, improve response protocols, and strengthen how critical information is shared with the public. He has over 17 years of law enforcement and criminal justice experience. He began his career, like me, as that basic patrol officer and investigator before joining the clearinghouse in 2013. Since then, he's helped develop training programs, coordinate cult case reviews, and just built systems to rapidly distribute um information during a missing person incident. So today he continues uh to focus on advancing investigatory practices, standardized responses, and also throwing it in there, making really big strides and alert and warning message development. Um, and that's I think one of the things we're gonna focus on. So a big welcome to Tim. Thank you for being on.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Tim, we're excited to have today. This is great.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

I am I am thrilled that we get to have this conversation because I have learned so much about the process of alerting for missing persons by working with New York State Division of Criminal Justice Missing Persons Clearinghouse. It's a big mouthful, and it is uh makes it makes sense that it's so big because your job is really, really big. And um the the cases that I see posted to social media where you have these solved cases, these weekend long events where you're finding people. It's just amazing to me the work that goes into what you do every day. And I'm thrilled that you've been also working on how to communicate with the public to help them to be more involved in your process. So, welcome to our show.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Thank you. Again, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So, you are gonna probably hear little stories throughout the show and everything else because we have worked together for a long time. And it honestly, even before we started recording the podcast, it's fun to catch up and hear about all the amazing things that are happening. So I'll start it off with a first question, and this is really gonna be a get to know you question because I really want our listeners to understand who you are and a little bit more about the program because it is different in New York than it is where I came from in California or maybe different than Georgia, North Dakota, wherever. And we acknowledge that every jurisdiction is unique. But for those that aren't familiar with the program, can you give us a little bit of an overview of it, how it relates to the state police and the role that you play?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Sure. Yeah, so you know, like Jeanette said, the New York State Missing Persons Clearinghouse uh falls within the State Division of Criminal Justice Services. That is our our uh agency that we're within. And really our role in the state is we are a 24-7 support service for law enforcement, for social services, and left behind family members in the investigation and the search for missing missing persons. Um, we have been around for a long time, far far longer than I've been here. Um we've been established since 1987 and started in the missing and exploited children uh fields exclusively, and then in 2011, with some updated legislation, uh morphed into the missing persons clearing house covering uh missing vulnerable adults, college students, and uh missing children. Just to kind of give you more background on what we do beyond alerting, which we'll talk, I'm sure, plenty of uh about in the next few minutes. Um we operate a 24-7 hotline. So any law enforcement agency uh who needs support can contact us 365 days a year. Um, our staff are all former law enforcement officers who have been in the field, who have done investigations, who have worked missing person cases. They bring those skills to our office, and we're able to support uh that work uh from our role uh in the state. We cover the entire state uh from New York City up to Buffalo to the to the Adirondacks. We cover uh anywhere and everywhere. And really, we're doing analytical work behind the scenes trying to help investigators uh develop leads. Uh we have we are statutorily required and uh and responsible for all the law enforcement training in the state. So our office makes sure that our law enforcement officers in New York are as up to date as we can, uh, keep them with missing person investigations, technologies, available resources. Uh, and really with that also morphs into our public outreach. Uh, we do community events, we have prevention um programs like our Internet Safety program, where we go out and try to educate uh the public and the youth in New York on, you know, being safe, using the internet safely. And again, obviously, you know, we can make those connections, how that how that impacts missing person cases that potentially come up. So as as you mentioned, Eddie, a big component of it that I haven't covered is our alerting. Um, New York has six missing person-related alerts. We have uh Amber Alert, which probably most people are aware of. Uh, we have an abducted adult alert program, uh, an Amber for Adults, and uh Blue Alert. Those three alerts are actually administered uh by the New York State Police Investigative Services Unit, who are partners of ours. Uh they, you know, for lack of a better term, they push the button on those alerts. They make the decision, they work on the uh on the programs of those. The clearinghouse, we have the three additional alerts of a missing child alert, a missing college student alert, and a missing vulnerable adult alert. Those alerts are designed to make sure that we're covering all the vulnerable populations that could potentially go missing, that an amber alert may not cover an abducted adult. You know, an amber alert needs some level of an ab of an abduction to be issued. There needs to be, you know, a reasonable suspicion that someone's a child or adult's been abducted. Uh but what about the six-year-old with autism that wanders out in the middle of a snowstorm? You know, that's where our missing child alert comes in. Uh, that's where our vulnerable adult alerts come in for, you know, the, you know, an elderly individual believed to have dementia who's who's wandered off or driven off and is at risk. So what's unique with New York is that the alerting is split between two different agencies. As you said, you know, we work very closely with our partners at the state police. Uh, Victoria Marticello is the senior investigator and the Amber Alert Coordinator. We talk, I think, multiple times a week to bounce the cases off each other, uh, make sure we're on the same page about uh different cases. So when we're activating alerts, the consistency is there. Um, but it it is definitely unique uh in the sense of not a lot of states split that alerting authority between the two. So, you know, we're a very uh busy unit, unfortunately. I always say, you know, we don't want to be busy with missing person cases, but we are. Um and uh we're we're pretty um proactive with our alerting uh to make sure that we're providing those resources.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

No, I love it. And and again, for those in a similar situation where you have split duties or split responsibilities, um, I would hope that you guys have a relationship like they have in New York. And um, Victoria, who is now the Amber Alert Coordinator for New York, amazing person. And as previous coordinators have been as well. And and it's one of those, you need to have that working relationship. And so I applaud you for keeping that. Um, and it's one of those, as long as you guys have that same like purpose in mind, I I think you can work through anything and uh it's great having good partners.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, I mean that's been that's bet that has been the key to the success of the Alert program here in New York State as a whole, between the between the two agencies. You know, being able to pick up the phone at three o'clock in the morning and have that conversation with someone of here's the facts, which way do we want to go with this to make sure we know which agency's, you know, taking the lead um has been such a benefit. And that has been the case uh really from day one for me uh from coming to New York is been that relationship and and it's and it is so key. Um, because in the few times where communication has has uh been a challenge or has faltered, we've seen the result of that where there's been confusion on on the end where it go out. So yeah, it's it's drastically important and and I'm grateful for the partnership we have with the state police for sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

And that's really good because I want you to go back in the way back machine, the quote unquote, like go back in time. For when you kind of when you first and you can go back to when you started in law enforcement yourself or when you joined the unit, obviously, because if if I were to ask you how things are right now, I know the picture I'm gonna get. But I want to look at kind of what led to this. And from when you started, were you able to recognize some like some of the bigger challenges that existed as far as communicating with the public or just whether it's operational, investigative, um, when it came to missing person cases?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, I mean, I think when I came to New York, you know, I I was a police officer in Maine, like you you had stated, Eddie, and um law enforcement, you know, in every state operates differently. And and, you know, I can still remember the very first what I would consider major missing person case I handled uh, you know, as a law enforcement officer. Two, two juvenile youths uh went missing. All we recovered was their two bikes on the side of the road. There was all these unknowns, you know, getting resources. And and I remember thinking at the time, you know, how can I get this information out to all the public that have been driving around and that may have seen, and we really didn't have that resource at the time. And fast forward to you know, 2013 when I came to New York, I walked into the the clearinghouse going, holy cow, you know, we have the capability here in New York. Um, you know, there's these these alerts that are available, there's these tools available. But you know, they were inefficient at best. I will say that. You know, for us at the time when I first uh came to activate an alert for us, it took us about close to two hours from start to finish. Generating content, getting the posters ready, getting information, sending out a a ton of emails. Um you know, technology was was limited at the time with different, you know, we were using a website with data fields that we had to populate to try to generate this poster. To now, you know, uh I think it was 2017, we were able to, through an IT project, automate our alert system and and increase those efficiencies where we can activate an alert in about 10 minutes now. If you have the information to us, we plug it in, few fields, and alerts, notifications spit out. Um the advances in technology and the advances in capabilities and the openness, I will say, of our previous program manager, Cindy Knaff, and our staff, uh the ability to look at where we can approve and continue to do that has just brought us uh I don't want to say ahead of the game because I never feel like we're ahead of the game, but we're definitely uh, you know, trying our best to stay up with it um to make our program you know as most efficient as it can be.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Um, how's um yeah, Jeanette and I reference your program a lot um with the advancements you guys have made. And it's funny, I know I'm teeing all this up because Jeanette's gonna go into all of the specifics for messaging because that for anybody who's listening, like you want to listen and hear all the stuff that's been happening. Um I wanna just lay more, one more foundation kind of question out there. And and again, what you guys have heard before, um, you know, we've worked with this agency and with the state police um for a while, and they are amazing programs. Um, they've gone through some pretty significant updates in how their their policy or program operates, especially around messaging. And I just want to kind of give you a chance um from your perspective, Tim, what's it like leading that effort? And again, we had Cindy Neff, who was there before you, um, who did a lot. But I I'm guessing this wasn't you just a wake up and you're like, hey, let's go through some pretty drastic changes on how we do things, how we say things. Um for those that are listening that may want to do something like this, what's it like?

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Well, it's it's definitely a challenge.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Um Fortunately I'm gonna say fortunately because I, you know, it is all about the I don't want to say attitude, but the the culture of the unit. Uh I'm fortunate that everyone in that's working in our unit wants to be there, at least from my perspective. Um you know, they everyone is is looking for ways to improve. I, you know, I feel like it's almost every week that even some of our mainline staff are are coming with ideas and say, hey, what if we do this? This sped this process up for me. We just had we use digital checklists. Um and I just had a staff member come to me with these a new approach to our checklist that would speed up, you know, navigating it. Great. Um the challenge I think comes in, and I think it comes into anyone that works in a in a profession where it's repetitive in nature, is that staff get comfortable with knowing what they do. Let's say we're activating a missing channel, or our staff are comfortable in, okay, this these are the steps I have to take. Um, you know, we have it templated out, we have everything checklist, so we make sure we cover our every step of the way. Any change means that we have to rewire that person to to now make those changes. And so that has always been a challenge. Um, not because of necessarily staff pushing back on them, but more of, you know, that muscle memory or that that repetitive nature, now we're changing it. And I think, you know, I know we'll talk about what went into a lot of the changes that we've made recently, but I think the biggest thing is that we've been able to include every level of our staff all along the way. So whether it is getting input from them um or relaying new information, new approaches, you know, you know, research that we've been, you know, made aware of, keeping them up to date and keeping them, you know, this is why. Giving them the why we're doing that um has made that a lot easier because they're bought in, they understand why we're making the change, and when it comes down to, you know, doing it, um, they're prepared for it.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I love it. I'm gonna pass it off to Jeanette, who I know is super excited because we're gonna jump into the specific messaging. I was thinking of all these things. I'm like, and I'm gonna hand it off to like the I was gonna say um magistrate of messaging, but then it was gonna be like the wizard of wording, or I I gotta think of something, but truly, um this has been fun. And so, Jeanette, let's jump into this one.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Okay, well, I I have one other name that you can use because I read about this. It's called a word stylist.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

I like a word stylist. So if you if you write messages, you are word styling. It's like a ver. Anyways, thank you. That's uh I I love getting to work on this and getting to work with the clearinghouse in New York was the first time that I got to work directly with an organization that addresses missing persons messaging, which is not the norm for people who work in the disaster space. In fact, this particular area of messaging is the one that most emergency managers are like, I'm not sure that those messages should even be going out over our system, the wireless emergency alert system. And um, and yet by working alongside of the clearinghouse, I've not only seen the incredible dedication and the importance of these alerts, but it's given me this whole new thought around frequency of messaging and targeting those messages more carefully so that the local community can be part of that response and recovery effort, which actually can create greater trust and greater community feelings of being part of something. Um, and so there's these potential benefits that I think that we have not been considering in the alerting space when we think about missing persons' alerts, because we're so concerned about over-alerting and people opting out. And yet the work that New York has done has been, they've thought so so deeply about that particular issue of over-alerting and have worked very, very intentionally to make this so that their messages are very clear and complete and targeted and specific. Um, and so that's all prelude to asking Tim about his messaging. Um, I'm just so excited because this is, I think, the program that is really setting the bar for the nation because of the work that you have done. So before the updates that I just talked about, little glimpses, can you describe the way the messaging used to be done two even two years ago? And what kinds of words or formats were commonly used? And did you think they were effective?

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Um and and why? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah, I you know it's interesting to look back and say, like, how are we alerting before? And you know, I think if I had to describe it best, it was just boilerplate messaging and something that kind of jumps out at me, and I've I've relayed. This to some of our staff is that you know, we use checklists and we will continue to use checklists because that key makes sure we're we're hitting all the key components of our alerts and we're we're doing what we need to do. But alerts are beyond a checklist. The message that is going out isn't a checklist, it isn't a template. Um, you know, it's a skill. So instead of us looking at it as I need to train my staff to complete a checklist, they can do that. I need to train the staff on a skill, which is message creation, message message sending to try to improve effectiveness. So the way we were sending them before is, you know, what I would say kind of more of this official language, using, you know, very standardized message templates that left little detail or or or left out a lot of detail, only gave little detail. Um, used very, you know, last scene date and time, last location date and time, you know, uh last location, a very generic physical description a lot of the times. Um, and you know, that was about it. We were really just keeping to very static facts. And the idea that we had, um, which I think is the idea that a lot of people have in our world, is we wanted to set up a program where, Jeanette, you come to our office someday and we all, you know, we all disappear, and alert needs to go out. You could pick up our manual and our checklist, you could copy and paste the template, and you could issue that alert without ever working for an hour in our unit. That was the idea that we felt like we had to be operating under. And now, through, especially in the last two years working with with both uh you and Eddie on our messaging and our targeting and all those things, the realization of no, you need to have a skill set. You need to have the understanding of what makes a message effective, what are the key components of a message, given the facts and the circumstances that we've been given to make a message the most effective it can. You know, one of the questions I think all alert originators have when they hit send, which is that big moment right before you click send of going, okay, did I get it all? Am I being the most effective? Is we don't have real time or even if we debrief later of just how effective that message was. Yes, we get the statistic on how many people it was sent to. Great. We get the feedback, especially if if the alert was directly responsible for the safe recovery or the recovery of the individual. We can we get that. Well, it was effective for at least one person that called that tip in, or you know, we can base it, but what we aren't able to easily track is of the people that got it, how many actually paid attention to it? Maybe they didn't call a lead-in, but were they looking? How many people, you know, we can see website clicks, but we don't know how many unique individuals that was. There's all these things that are questions. So, you know, when you ask how effective we were, I wish I knew. I want to say we're as effective as we were doing at the time, but you know, in my mind, where we are now sets us up to be the most effective we've ever been before, especially focusing in on, you know, instead of those boilerplate templates, we are are crafting or styling a message that we can at least or we're making our best effort at making it the most effective. So I I, you know, those that shift in mindset, I think, beyond shifting of our language, beyond shifting of our templates, was I think a big shift for me and a big shift for our unit of, you know, we're not gonna tell you this is the wording to put out. We're gonna give you the concepts of here's some key components we need to make sure we're hitting. We're no longer just copying and pasting into a into a message template. We are, we have the basis to save some time, but we're gonna make sure that we're including the factors that make this message as effective as we can be. So it's been um, you know, I've been really grateful for the for our staff. They've they've completely embraced this that mindset and and are really uh it's showing because you know, we we peer review our alerts and we look at our posters and we look at our templates, and um, you know, we're we're what I've seen is that we've really been brought up to speed with what we the work we've been doing.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah, well, it was amazing to watch your staff and the state police all working together to design messages and the the process that you went through of making decisions about the language that's used for different kinds of aspects that are included in messaging. Um, thinking about how do you describe the characteristics of the vulnerable person, um, being very cautious in not identifying them with a particular condition. Right. So that you're you're you're giving them privacy, you're helping to um give them that um the ability to to maintain I don't even know, I don't know what the word is help me here.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

It's just you you're you're helping them because you're so cautious about the way you're thinking about talking about them in a message.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

I don't know, that wasn't a good I mean we might want to cut that part out because I was well I think you're hitting a key, I think you're hitting a key, a key component here that we haven't really talked about, which is, and it goes back to also where we were 10 years ago to where we are now, is uh control of your message or control of your alert after you've hit that button.

SPEAKER_03 28:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

10 years ago was way more controlled. Sharing across social media was there, but it wasn't being, you know, reshared as much. It wasn't being reposted. It wasn't, we weren't dealing with which an issue we're dealing with now is, you know, um scammers actually using images from different missing person cases and creating a fake missing person case and posting it on social media to try to generate people to click a link or go to. That wasn't as much of an issue 10 years ago. So we, you know, we weren't as focused on looking at what happens after this person's located, what is the footprint on the internet after we say it's down. We can control our links, we can control our websites, we can send out our cancels, but we have seen it so many times. We have been contacted by someone that says, Hey, you guys put an alert out for me 10 years ago, you know, it had, you know, indications of my mental health status at the time. It's all over the internet still. And so we really, in the last couple of years, looked at is it necessary, what information is necessary to help locate this individual? Because that's really what we're doing. You know, to go down another sidetrack to something you said earlier, Jeanette, is that missing person alerting is so different than disaster or emergency because in those situations you're alerting the public to take action to protect themselves, right? Generally speaking, lumping them all together. In missing persons, it's actually us asking the public to help us. It's it's not a situation that they need to do something. We're trying to get them to want to do something. Um, and I think when we focus in on what information is best suited for that person receiving that message to go help us, if it's not needed and it's just information that's a fact or circumstances, then that we don't need to put that out there because then it reduces the amount of times that's going to follow someone. So yeah, to your point, that's been a major focus the last couple of years of removing any diagon medical diagnosis, removing any uh, you know, language directly related to um you know a mental health situation at the time, and more focusing on if the person's endangered or not. You know, we've we've decided on a few uh situations. For example, uh, you know, someone with autism. We do include that because the public generally understands what comes with that. Uh and and the behavioral characteristics of an individual with uh with autism, you know, vary widely. Everyone is unique. And so, you know, that helps us at least get some information about that individual uh in a knowing sense for the public, um, without taking tons of characters to explain all the the the individual characteristics. We hit the highlights and and go from there. But yeah, that's been definitely a focus uh for us is after we push send, even when we cancel, that's being circulated still.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

So yeah, yeah. I think one of the words I I might use is giving people the ability to retain some dignity after being part of a message that goes out to a whole community or beyond their community. Um and I think one of the phrases that you all have identified is the person may appear confused and in need of medical attention, which I think is just such a kind way of stating we need to help this person because they need our help. And asking people to reach into their empathy and say, yeah, I can do that. I can look out my window and see if the person's walking by. Right. I can check my car, I can check my shed.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Uh, and it's you know, it's reaching out and saying, please help us.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, that's that that is definitely the key, is is trying to relay that message in a small amount of characters to the to that person receiving it that this person is endangered enough that the state is issuing an alert to locate this individual. We need to give them enough to understand a characteristic that they're looking for, an action item we're gonna put in there, go, you know, check, check your property, check your sheds, check your pools, all those, those key things, depending on the case. Um, but it's really trying to drive home that, you know, this person does need help. It's not, you know, we try to avoid, you know, activating on on cases that don't warrant activation. We have other resources for that. We want the public to understand if you're getting this, there's a reason, and and we're and we need your help there.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yeah, and thank you. And I knew we'd eventually find the words to describe what we're trying to accomplish here. Okay, so there's been some major changes in how the Claringhouse communicates. You previously there was some focus on alert names that were included, um, and you've moved away from that. And part of that is due to the research that was presented as part of our work with you. Can you talk a little bit about how research has informed the decisions that you you made in including names and and other changes that you've made?

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Well, I think what it did is it filled some of the holes that I mentioned earlier of, you know, we pushed send, and we only had some data to look at to say how effective we were. And looking at the research, you know, Jeanette and Eddie, that you guys brought to us working with you the last few years to say, well, here's some actual scientific research that was done on a social level to say, here's what the public engaged with, here's what they didn't, here's what the public gave for feedback when they received these messages, here's what has been shown to be effective versus just what we think is. And I think that that exercise allowed us to look at, okay, now that we have this information, you know, what, you know, one of the topics we talked a lot about is vehicles. Well, we used official language a lot uh in previously, where we would put make model, and it's like, well, most people don't know the difference between a Toyota Corolla and a Toyota Camry, so why are we focusing in on that model name? Well, that's just wasted characters. So let's rephrase how that is. So we're looking for a car, a Toyota car, Toyota Sedan, giving more of that the vehicle style. Um, I think what it allowed us to do is take that information and then re-examine all of our alerts, all of our templates individually, one by one, and say, okay, given what the public is engaging with, are we sending alerts that prompt that? And what we saw a lot of times is no, we have to make changes. Are we using jargon, you know, that that whether it was law enforcement jargon or what I would say is like alert jargon that was been used previously to, you know, instead of saying last scene walking, we were using on foot. Well, for us, on foot makes sense, but not everyone, it does. Um, and you know, realizing that and then going back and looking at each alert individually, um, we were able to make those changes in language. Where I think we had issue is that um this whole, you know, like I said, we have six different alerts in New York. I would, I would guess, and this is a guess, that if we pulled the citizens of New York to give us an understanding of which alerts are available and what do they mean and what are they for, most people are gonna know an Amber Alert because that's a that's a well-covered pop, you know, the uh uh nationwide there's Amber alerts. Each state has different, you know, sub-alerts or different alerts like we do. Um when it came down to naming the the names of the alerts and how they're issued, uh, in my opinion on it, uh, you know, it makes more sense to condense those down and to have targeted alerts that cover the populations we need to or the circumstances we need to. But a lot of times what it you know, especially for us, the c that gets um challenging for that is that some of these alerts are created under legislation. Um, you know, the ability to rename or reissue isn't something that we can just decide. And so as much as we'd like to from from programmatically say, okay, we're we're only going to a missing endangered person alert, and it's going to cover these different populations. We, in the end, were able to make the changes on the language side and make, you know, in the effort to make our alerts more efficient, um, but we still are using the multiple different alert names uh when it's issued. Now, again, we have some flexibility in our language that that allows uh the work with that. Um, but the the programs themselves are still uh separated out. So there are still those challenges that come into play in our world where, you know, uh we can we can make changes where we can. Um, and some things are just uh unfortunately where they where they need to be.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yeah, we've we spent a lot of time talking about the research, and I brought um several studies and shared them with the clearinghouse and with the state police, and it was really it was eye-opening for all of us. This was new research because it it has only been done in the last few years. And Lauren Kane was the lead on those studies. And um, for anyone who's listening who wants a freshly minted PhD looking for a job, um, Lauren will be coming back from her work in France um shortly. Um and but the, you know, she she examined all of the messages that have ever been issued for missing persons and looked at their qualities and the characteristics included and helped us to really zero in and say, you know, these ones fit what we know is useful in an alert that is designed for disaster. And those characteristics are the same kinds of things that are useful for people to understand and believe and make a decision about helping in in this kind of an alerting context, also. And so um from there, uh, after looking across all of those different messages that have ever been issued, I mean, there were so many questions that started to emerge. And then um, she also helped us to to do an experiment. We were looking at people's understanding of those different alert names, like you were talking about, um, whether or not people know the difference between a green alert or a blue alert or an amber alert or an Ashanti alert. And um, you know, the the experiments that we did, the the public don't understand the the language that's used, that that policey jargon that you were talking about, and the importance of using the plain language so that people can engage and they do understand the population that that you're talking about and also what they can do to be helpful. And um, you know, those are these are studies that honestly we didn't have them before. And so all of the work that missing persons clearinghouses across the country are currently doing, you can't be faulted for not knowing how to do it differently if no one's been able to show you. Um so now that this research is coming out and it it can inform people's practices, um, I am I'm really grateful that New York is taking that and implementing it as the research is getting published also.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

Yeah, it's been it's been really beneficial to us.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

And I will say that, you know, we've just now kind of transitioned into these the our most recent changes, our most recent templates. And I would love to be able to look at, you know, moving forward, look at okay, these messages are going out and get the you know, selfishly, I'd like to get it for New York uh alone, but obviously on a national level as well. But, you know, the effectiveness of having all these different alerts and and sending these messages, in the end, we're trying to get across what I said before. This person is endangered, regardless of what the alert name is. If we're issuing an alert, there's an endangerment level here that we need to find this individual, whether it's a child or an adult, whatever the situation is, if we're issuing that alert, regardless of the name of it, we need to help we'll help find this person. And I think with the push um that I've started to see nationwide of adding more alerts. The idea is we need more alerts for more populations. But the the you know, what you're talking about, Jeanette, is that that might be great in theory, but it's not effective in the public sense. You know, and if it's not effective in the public sense, and and with the research that you're you're doing and looking at that, um we need to focus in on let's make sure our alert programs cover all populations, regardless of of, you know, whatever the the demographic might be, whatever it is, make sure we're we've got the the popul every population covered in every potential, you know, scenario, which is impossible, but the the the big endangerments covered where we're not going to be stuck saying, well, we don't have an alert for that, but still be able to push push those messages out um without confusing the public on, you know, some other named alert. Uh that's where the focus I think needs to be is looking at like you're saying, you know, that effectiveness uh versus the title of an alert.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

Yeah, thanks. Thanks for bringing that up. I think is really important because you're right. We do see new named alerts coming out all the time. And it's not just for missing persons, it's for other kinds of events also, which I can only imagine how confusing that will be if that's the the hazard name for uh in a message. If if it's not plain language, people just won't understand what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

So can I just put it out there and say if you're thinking about creating a new alert and a new name, stop it. Stop. Don't do it unless you talk to us first, okay? Like there was one I heard that was being talked about called the Brown Alert, and it was gonna be for essentially a boil water notice. So that your water is not good, and so it was gonna be called a brown alert. And I'm just thinking to myself plain language folks, just and and I know we preach that all the time here. So yes, that is that is my statement. Don't do it anymore, folks. Just talk to us plain language. You got all the tools you need to make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Yeah, I think I think I'll just add here, and this is just, you know, an opinion of mine, is that I think sometimes we focus in on and I say we, as a as government agencies or as alerting authorities, or whatever the role, I think sometimes we get stuck in looking at, well, there's this possible scenario that we're not addressing, or or this population might be uh, you know, we might not have an alert for that, or or there might be not a program dedicated to that. I think the bigger shift would be, well, make sure you have the capability to activate, but it's really um focusing in on the the public outreach, the media outreach, the uh the alert receiver uh uh awareness that hey, we have these alerts and the we've got the everyone's covered here. We've got these scenarios covered, but here's what you might receive and why. And if we have to do that on ten different alerts, that's difficult. But if we can, you know, to public awareness on three, four, five, I'm gonna say six because that's what we have. Um it's more it's a little bit more manageable to explain why someone is getting something and what we're looking for them to do. So it's really I think that focus is is so important in our in the world that we're operating in.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

And if you were to say, Hey, invite your stakeholders, unless we really define what that is, I mean that could mean two people, it could mean more. I've only had one other experience doing this for the number of years I've been doing it, and it was an American Samoa, where I walked into a room and they literally had every potential stakeholder that was involved in this. And then there's New York, who I would put right alongside that. I was very impressed with the work you guys did, and what we say stakeholders, because I think this is important, what does it mean to you? And what kind of like, why'd you guys invite everybody? I loved it. But I like I said, I'm used to having like two people in there. There were quite a few.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah. Well, I think what you saw is what has been kind of the cornerstone to our alert programs from as long as I've been here is that we have always had a very strong um alert partner committee, working group, stakeholders, whatever you want to call it, whatever name you want to throw onto it, um that meet regularly. So, you know, Eddie, you walked into a group of people that that wasn't the first time we've sat down together in five years. That is something that, you know, once a quarter, at this point we aren't, you know, once a quarter, but we're we're in regular communication. We're interacting and we're talking to those groups of people regularly. So, you know, when you say stakeholders, it's it's anyone that a representative from anyone that receives our alert on the what we would classify on like the internal side, meaning um not the public or not message receivers downstream, but the people that are gonna take our alert and either reissue it, so our transportation agencies that are putting it up on variable message signs on the highways, to our bridge authorities, to our partners down in New York City, Office of Emergency Management, whoever is gonna be getting a notification from us and either reissuing or reposting or whatever. And then we, you know, want to include those public-facing entities too. So the New York State Broadcasters Association, we are in regular contact with them. Um, you know, we have done our best at times to bring in members of the public to try to get their feedback, but we that's on a separate kind of uh level than these committee meetings. But the idea is to stay in regular contact and bring up issues. So, you know, we've had issues where um our alerting regions weren't lining up uh well enough with the DOT regions. And so when we were activating and saying, hey, DOT, can you this is the region we've activated, can you please throw this information up on the highway sign? They then had to do a second process to try to realign and figure out what signs are going to be activated in in this region. And it's having these regular meetings with those stakeholders where we can identify those issues, not at three o'clock in the morning when we're sending an alert, but you know, over lunch, we can say, okay, how do we, what can we do better when we send this alert to you so it's more useful for you to do what you need to do. So that has been such a key component to our programs. And I'm speaking on behalf of the state police as well, who who, again, I would, you know, be risk be lacking in saying that they are a key component and partnership, the the two agencies working together in this field, everything we've done, they've been right there as well, doing it with us. Um having that group together and hearing from both agencies that are activating alerts and working through those issues have have kept, you know, that relationship there that if I have a question for New York City, I know who I'm gonna pick up the phone and call. If if I have a question for the broadcasters or we have we run into an issue, we get feedback on an alert that, hey, this didn't go out this way, why? We know who we can contact to try to work through an issue. And so I think beyond the message templates and beyond the language and the you know functionality of our alerts, the other major component that is necessary for us to be effective is this, you know, are those stakeholders, are those committee members that are on regular contact uh as a group? Whether it's the clearinghouse uh organizing it and and you know having a discussion, or we've just seen in our meetings where uh two agencies that have nothing to do with with missing person alerts have an opportunity where they're sitting down with each other and they have a conversation, you know, after the fact about something they're dealing with on, let's say, disaster alerting. So it's been such an important part of the alert programs in New York is to be able to have those committee members who are committed to staying in regular contact.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

Yeah, walking into that first meeting and seeing people who had taken the train up from New York City and were completely invested in the process, and others who came from farther parts of northern New York and like is it was just amazing to see uh the collaboration that was occurring around that. So um I'm sure you you're continuing to work in this space um in in terms of improvements, but um looking forward, where do you see the missing person's clearinghouse going next? Um, and what what should we be thinking about where that what we're gonna be seeing from you?

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah, I mean, where are we going next? We have we uh one thing I will say about the clearinghouse in New York and and obviously uh suede here uh is that we're always as a group. And it's this is just me in the in the program manager role. I will say this from my my supervisors to the mainline staff. Like I mentioned at the start, they're always looking for improvements. Um I think for us, the the next biggest step in this, the most recent process that we've been going through on updating updating our programs is we really need to get out and we're working on the uh starting the groundwork for public uh public awareness campaigns, um uh improving and and updating our law enforcement training, uh getting more information out on, okay, you've received this alert. Why? Uh, you know, we've started a few social media campaigns trying to get some some frequently asked questions out to highlight the differences between an amber alert and a missing child alert, which is often confused. Why are they separate? What are the populations and the circumstances that those alerts are designed for? Uh, where do they go? So for us, I think then a big focus in our alert program is going to be taking and staying up to date and continuing to look at the research side. So we're we're definitely going to continue there and looking for ways to be more efficient, but making sure that we're now taking those what we've done on our end and making sure that we are setting up the public or those who receive our alerts to be successful as as well, um, which is, I think if you don't do both of those, you're missing a component. You can make all the changes you want on your program, but if the the people who receive your alerts aren't understanding of what that change means or what we're looking for, you're you're only getting half the tool. Um and and that's really the next step, I think, for us is really focusing in on um you know the growth that we've we've done as a unit and with the changes we've made, uh making it known and making sure that you know we can get the feedback, we can look at the research, and we can say, are we being the most effective?

SPEAKER_03 54:11

That's great. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

So I think it's just like final thoughts here. Um like one thing, and I I remember this one because I've had this discussion with other agencies, like a decision was made. Remember when we talked about eye color? Like about things that we quote unquote normally put into all these, you know, messages, but does that really impact? Like if you're if you see a three-year-old walking around who's walking away from you, are you like, hold on, does that three-year-old have brown eyes or green eyes? Right. Right? Before I take a chance. And when when Jeanette talked about how deeply you guys thought through this stuff, I I don't want to oversimplify the process because this wasn't, you know, a genie came in and just said, here are the changes. It takes work. And and you guys, I know for me, I could really tell not only did you know your community, but you like wanted to make sure that your community was completely empowered. And for my closing thoughts for this process that you guys went through, I think that's what sticks with me is the amount of work that did go into this and partnerships and thought through each word. And we say messaging matters, words matter, we say that, but but like there's some deep, deep stuff when it goes into each and every one of those conversations. And so I was super impressed and grateful to have that chance to work with you guys and and work through each of those steps. Um, and so I think the invitation for me is for anybody who's listening, um, I'm not gonna give out Tim's cell phone number, but I will say that anybody who has ever called and asked, and I can say this when I was running it um in a different place, we're always like, sure, like we're like what can I do? And the staff over in New York, can I put you on the spot and say if people have questions, can they reach out and learn more?

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Absolutely. You know, um if you Google the New York State Missing Persons Clearinghouse, because it's easy enough to do, you will find our our website, our contact information. Yeah, uh definitely reach out. I think, Eddie, to to your point, and I was sitting here thinking about, you know, working in in government, working in state government, it's hard sometimes to see um the impact of your work. Right. Uh, you know, even in our in in the missing person's world, in the in the clearinghouse world, we can send, you know, we can send an alerta, we can work on a case, we can provide support, we can develop leads, um, but we don't often get the the feedback of how effective that was, like we've talked about and and the impact. I think for us, and I'm super grateful uh to be able to work with the group that I do, uh the staff that we have, um everyone understands that our our work in the clearinghouse directly impacts the public. Whether that's the message we're sending out, or it's really the most important thing for us, is safely recovering those individuals that have gone missing, that are endangered, that need to be found. You know, we we have that focus that our work does matter. We we remember that. And I think that going through these processes and sitting and debating eye color for far longer than you think you could of, you know, are we including it or not? You know, uh, how how accurate are height descriptions? We know witnesses uh can describe someone five different heights. Um, you know, wait, so spending all that time, I didn't hear my, you know, anyone involved in the process going, why are we still talking about this? Everyone was, it took that long to talk about it because everyone was giving feedback and and input and trying to come up with the best solution, whether it's what seems minuscule like eye color, uh, to the you know how we're describing the vehicle. But when it comes down to that, like I said, building that skill of writing a message, uh everyone, I feel like, embrace the idea of the reason this matters is because a lot oftentimes someone's life could depend on it. And so uh I'm super grateful for the staff that we have at the clearinghouse. I'm uh, you know, the partnership we have with the state police and the work that they're doing, the two programs uh strengthen each other. And it's it's been uh, you know, I'm I'm the the ability, the the the position I find myself in leading this group and trying to to be there to to build this program, I'm just amazed by it and and grateful for it. And grateful that I get to work with people like you two who are bringing such important uh research, important information, experience, and allowing and challenging us. I mean, I can say many meetings, you know, a simple question made us all go, hmm. You know, that's a good question. Dr. Sutton, I'm gonna have to think about that one because we had never brought that up before. Or, you know, Eddie, your experience, you know, with with your background and alerting and you know, we're open to that challenge and it's been really uh enlightening and and I'm grateful for it. So you know, I I can't say it enough how much uh the success of our programs have been uh, you know, really improved in the last few years through the work that we've been able to do with both of you as well.

SPEAKER_02 59:55

Thank you. Uh and it's I think I'll speak on both of our behalfs. Um just it has been truly a pleasure and an honor to be part of your program also. Um and being invited to participate um was it's been eye-opening for me, and I feel like it's helping the whole nation to become better at alerting for missing persons. And so I am really grateful that New York took that step um to help to provide that leadership. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share with all of our listeners, because I hope that we have listeners who are working within this space, who are listening and watching this podcast. Eddie and I uh we do trainings. We work directly with clearinghouses and other alerting authorities that are responsible for issuing these kinds of alerts. And we would love to work with you if you have needs in thinking about thinking through the messages that you issue, the kinds of templates that you're developing, getting into the weeds around these kinds of questions that the state of New York has already been dealing with, helping you to think through those questions and bringing the research to you so that you have the whys behind the decisions that you're making. Um, you know, please reach out to us at the Alerting Authority. The research that I was talking about on this episode, it is uh posted to the Warn Room. And if if you can't find it, just reach out to me directly and I will make sure that you get it. Um we love to share this information because it is so useful for the decisions that you're making as you're improving your own programs. Um if you have any policy needs, messaging needs, um please do reach out. And I will give one additional plug for the warning boot camp. The second one is occurring um in July, and we have a full day dedicated to missing persons' messages so that you come out of that process with understanding the decisions that you need to make um ahead of time so that your templates are aligned with the best practices and evidence. Um, Tim, just thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure to hear from you about all of the work that you've done. And um obviously you have such gratitude to your staff and the people that you work alongside of. Um, and I also have a great deal of gratitude for all of those who are involved in this program. The work that you do to save lives is so admirable. Thank you. Thank you for what you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

You know, we talk about our alert partners, but partnerships with people that are also passionate about improving um is is just, you know, adds to that success. So we're gonna continue to be in touch for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

Well, we're all partners here together and we are focused on that purpose. And honestly, that's one of the big reasons why we do this podcast. Because here at the Alerting Authority, we believe that every second has a story, and we want to continue to be here to help share yours. So thank you for listening. Have a good day.