Who and What is SKIP?
The American Institute on Domestic Violence is a not-for-profit organization that has long been dedicated to the safety of women, children and their families. Our signature project is called SKIP - Safe Kids Identification Program.
SKIP was born out of our work with battered women in domestic violence shelters. In interviewing many of these victims, we identified a clear lack of services to protect their children. One of these Moms’ greatest fears is that their abuser will locate the children in shelter and kidnap them, as retribution for the victim leaving. Based on this, we created the SKIP Program.
We quickly began receiving feedback from other organizations and schools in our communities that all children should have access to the SKIP Program. As such, SKIP took a big leap out into America, to help every parent realize the importance of a good quality digital ID for their children.
SKIP is the most comprehensive child ID program available. These ID kits provide law enforcement agencies with critical information that dramatically improves agency response time when trying to locate a missing child or issue an Amber Alert.
Every parent’s worst nightmare is the disappearance of a child. In today’s society with over 800,000 children reported missing each year, the problem cannot be ignored.
The good news is many children can be recovered if their parents immediately provide police with a complete DIGITAL record of identification.
Our SKIP Safe Kids Identification Program has been developed under the thoughtful direction of many dedicated people in law enforcement, human services and abuse prevention. It is the most comprehensive child identification program available in America.
SKIP has two components.
- The first component is a state-of-the-art computer ID program that saves
two photographs of your child...a front portrait and a side profile...and vital
statistics about the child such as height, weight, eye and hair color,
birthmarks, scars, allergies, medications and medical issues. This information
is stored on the parent's home computer.
As the child grows, the parent continues to update the child's information.
According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, this update should be done every six months to make sure that all identifying information & pictures are current.
In the event of an emergency, the SKIP computer program can create and print - at the click of a button - a Missing Child Poster to distribute that is complete with pictures, identifying data and details about the child’s distinguishing characteristics, clothing and the place of disappearance.
More importantly, this poster can be immediately EMAILED to the police to determine whether to issue an Amber Alert for the missing child. Parents can also make back-up copies to send with the children when they travel on visitation or vacation.
- The second component involves a Toothprints dental wafer that captures the child's bite pattern…which is as unique to each individual as fingerprints…DNA and child’s scent for police tracking dogs.
The SKIP ID Kit is available in an individual child CD ($9.95) or Family CD ($14.95). To order, contact us atColeen@aidv-usa.com
To locate SKIP contacts around the country, click here.