Regarding the questions about the procedures used to address a crisis or concern or crime, Allison Drew raises important points in Searching for My Missing Father. Tom Drew lived across from The Option Institute (option.org) which offers a great deal of help to people facing challenges whether having a child on the autism spectrum or considering one’s beliefs, choices, feelings and experiences in life. I have asked them in the past to consider the situation that unfolded in their area but without any interest at the time. I did write a story, The Turtle and The Acorn by Catherine Palmer Paton after taking programs with them as a volunteer.
A friend from Toastmasters.org suggested that might be helpful as I was handling difficult situations and wanting more community support for people in many situations. Most people were feeling everyone ‘should learn and pursue things personally and with professionals’ rather than have community exploration of any social or legal concern.
This forum that Allision Drew and I have created with a very public dialogue and with a great deal of press coverage with more theories than most could begin to imagine let alone pursue should help more people feel everyone has covered the bases, yet there is still more that could and should have been done to secure a clear timeline, separate the three people who were on the scene when police were called and who had searched diligently for the first 45 minutes.
Blood samples could have been given by the part-time caregiver and even the others if that had been suggested, cars checked and even held for further testing and other benign ways to ‘prove they were all telling the truth’ about what they were doing that day and in the minutes before Tom left his home on foot. Allison Drew has asserted many reasonable points and did a great deal of advocacy without much community support.
Those points can be instrumental in responding with more voluntary ways to prevent harm and to investigate matters independently with community forums and clear guidelines for all to follow in various situations.
With teams collaborating, more creative, caring responses can be shared. Professional oversight is important as well, particularly with legal considerations not to be accused falsely or base judgements on inaccuracies, rumors and far-fetched possibilities. The media and those in official spokespeople roles should be especially careful and seeking accuracy not selling stories and impacting people’s reputation and work options negatively without cause.
People could voluntarily participate in programs or living with more accountability to allow people to feel more clear and gain confidence in someone as well. All parents and caregivers should seek sobriety, safety and consistency with some free counseling to help smooth out concerns. The part-time caregiver had done many such programs as a parent, a college student studying to be an elementary school teacher, dancer and caregiver. Thanks to all thinking along these lines to improve the way people can work together more positively and productively.
There is more info on this forumLivfully.org/wordpressblog As a tri-state community we could form a comprehensive team to address concerns about this case and standards to promote voluntary guidelines for caring for people at each age and stage of life.
I have worked along these lines for decades as part of this community and a few others as well.
People need to want to create new meaningful forums to #1 Find the Truth out about what is in the media
#2 Find the truth out about any situation (and maybe that should be first, but once something is in print or online, true or not, that becomes the lens which people filter things, particularly if written up in a way that seems official.)
I agree with Allison that the start of such an investigation should be started as a crime scene…but I don’t think that’s how the system allots resources…The police have to find evidence of a crime to access certain resources (but I’m no expert…that’s something I’ve heard along the way…)
Maybe there could be ‘deputy dogs’ looking to advise people (since there are no official sites and folks to do just that…) I would offer that everyone should leave the home immediately (so nothing is further disturbed, taped off with yellow tape and alert people with signage even along the property and access roads that there is no trespassing etc allowed.)
Anyone wanting to join in a search to help locate someone or something, a pet etc, should work through a lead team to coordinate efforts. A bloodhound finds a specific scent, so can be confused by others on the property.
The K9 Dog Rescue team identifies everyone in a group and finds anyone new (more like people would do, saying if you find someone not in our group, give a holler etc…)
So there’s a lot to consider and it can take time, months, years, writing a couple hundred pages and try to clarify what isn’t correct about any particular version of a story. So Who Really Cares Enough to put some time and effort into an organized response whether for the Tom Drew Case, the Kaelan Palmer Paton case (of a group of minors going to the Falls with some adults approving of the venture even against agreements among others not to allow for such unsupervised outings…and clearly even if adults were there, they may have allowed for such a dangerous set of jumps not realizing the undertow was strong, since some had done that a couple days prior…and plenty are doing risky things such as on Falls Village Cliff Jumping on youtube apparently…no I haven’t seen it, yet…)
Just saying we need to shore up the loop holes and consider each kind of challenge people and places pose and try to do better going forward…