My Daddy is hurting my Mommy

In this month’s feature Training Tactics post, PowerPhone CEO Chris Salafia discusses some important tips for managing emergency calls from children.

My Daddy is hurting my Mommy! That was the title of an article that PowerPhone founder Phil Salafia wrote in 9-1-1 Magazine in October of 1998 and eleven years later were the exact same words spoken by a scared and perhaps traumatized young girl on the phone to 9-1-1 recently.

In today’s society, children are encouraged from a young age to “Call 9-1-1″ and we are seeing examples time and again of young children reaching out for help via the 9-1-1 system. Your public education programs are working!

In just about all PowerPhone training classes we spend time focusing on communication techniques with “special callers.” Be they the elderly, foreign language, altered mental status or child callers, these special call types present unique challenges for public safety call-takers.

It’s vitally important that 9-1-1 call takers recognize that child callers are indeed special. Children can easily be intimidated and frightened, so engage your active listening skills from the onset of the call. What may appear as a hang-up or an open line could in fact be a scared child afraid to ask for help. Listen carefully and focus on your voice tonality, inflection and rate of speech. Children often perceive things differently, so try your best to use age-appropriate vocabulary (“what color car does daddy drive” vs. “what’s the make and model of the vehicle”) and whenever possible use association skills and familiar frames of reference (“was he taller than your dad”) in trying to elicit descriptive information.

Unfortunately, children are often witness to and reporters of domestic violence. Studies indicate that more than 3 million children witness acts of domestic violence every year.* Special care must be taken when handling calls from children reporting domestic violence. As we’ve already discussed, use words and phrases that the child can understand. Try and avoid “rapid fire questioning” and do your best to keep the child calm, avoiding words that may further frighten the child.  Praise the child (“you did the right thing by calling us”) and affirm what they are feeling (“it’s OK to be scared”). Don’t be afraid to use terms of endearment, (“it’s OK honey”), especially when dealing with a younger child. As one of our student’s put it best, “I went into Mom mode.”

Last, remember that children are not only witnesses, they may also be victims of domestic violence. Research indicates that 50%-70% of men who abuse their female partners, also abuse children in the home.* Using PowerPhone’s Investigative Questioning techniques remember to also determine the following:

• How many children are present?
  
• What are their ages?
• Where are they in the house?
• Has this happened before?

Always keeping in mind that the children may also be in physical danger.  Domestic disturbances can be highly volatile and represent tremendous risk to all involved. You must try and determine if there are weapons present (“does Daddy own a gun?“) Listen carefully for noises in the background and update your responders with as much scene specific information as you can. Caller, victim AND responder safety must be of paramount concern.

As the clip below illustrates, child callers can represent our biggest challenge, yet can also be incredibly rewarding. I’ve personally attended a number of award presentations were a child has been the only lifeline to help and a professional dispatcher has made all the difference. As your agency invests in educating children about when to call 9-1-1, those on the front line must also be educated in how to best assist these young citizens.

*Source: The Domestic Violence Sourcebook

About the author:
Chris Salafia is the President and CEO of PowerPhone. He is the co-inventor of Computer Aided Call Handling (CACH), a revolutionary approach to emergency and non-emergency call taking, and Incident Linked Multimedia (ILM), the first system that intelligently processes cell phone multimedia messages sent to 9-1-1 centers. Mr. Salafia holds a U.S. patent on “Call Handler Systems and Methods” and is the co-author of several patents relating to emergency communications response systems. His company is recognized as the nation’s leading dispatch trainer, having trained over 150,000 9-1-1 professionals worldwide. He can be reached via e-mail or 203.245.8911.

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