OREGON — On Feb. 28, the Ogle County Sheriff’s Office announced the official implementation of its Handle with Care program in cooperation with nearly all of the school districts in Ogle County to protect children.
Through the working relationship, when county law enforcement encounters a child at the scene of an incident, they identify the child and send a notice to their school that they were involved in a police incident the night before and may have academic or behavioral problems that day. The notice includes no details about the incident and contains only the child’s name and three words: Handle with Care. The school receives the notice before the start of the school day so that staff is prepared to “handle the child with care” and respond in a trauma-informed way.
Ogle County Sheriff Brian VanVickle said that this past fall, his office and schools discussed the importance of getting children help at an early age and came across the program that is used in other places across the nation. The program seemed to be a solution to fill a need that was being seen and the sheriff’s office was able to get cooperation from schools and the program has now been put into place.
“For example, if a seventh grader is up at 2 a.m. because their mom and dad are having a dispute, obviously their next day at school is going to be impacted,” VanVickle said. “We want the teachers to know what's going on at the home that may affect a child at school. The program allows us to get information in a timely fashion to the right people. The counselors and teachers will have that before the school day starts, which we thought was really important. The schools were on board and provided the email addresses to their teams that deal with kids that have traumatizing incidents. We were able to connect all of those dots to make sure that those kids get those services. It's situations where kids aren't necessarily the problem, but they're impacted by law enforcement being at the house. This is an opportunity for the schools to get the kids through a potentially tough time in their life.”
Research shows that exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as witnessing violence in the home or community, can have lasting negative effects on health, well-being, and opportunity, a sheriff’s office press release said. ACEs can also lead to toxic stress, which may change brain development and impact attention, decision-making, and learning, all of which are crucial for educational success. ACEs can be prevented through targeted strategies such as interventions to lessen immediate and long-term harms. One such intervention that focuses on trauma-informed responses through a partnership between law enforcement, schools, and mental health providers is the Handle with Care program.
VanVickle said there was no previous formal way to inform schools of law enforcement presence at events in the homes of students, outside of in the case of a “significant event.”
“But we didn’t have anything in place for just normal police activity,” VanVickle said. “If we were at the house in the past for a simple domestic dispute where nobody got arrested, that information wasn't provided to the school. We thought that was really a void we were missing, being able to provide the school with a little bit of information. An example is telling a teacher why a student may be having a difficult time staying awake at school, because they were up all night because mom and dad weren't getting along. This just helps the school and teachers to better understand what's going on with their students and gives the students more support at school.”
Sheriff’s deputies have seen through training the significance of childhood trauma and how it can impact kids into adulthood, VanVickle said. The Handle with Care program aims to mitigate that childhood trauma by providing resources to stop the cycle as children age into high school and young adulthood.
“The buy-in from the schools was tremendous and right away,” VanVickle said. “It was an easy sell to them because I think the teachers and counselors understand that some kids do have difficult home lives. Whenever additional resources can be provided to those kids, it certainly helps them. The schools were certainly on board with that.”
Almost 80 percent of domestic disputes that the Ogle County Sheriff’s Office responds to have a juvenile in the home, VanVickle said. He believes the Handle with Care program and notification of schools is “an important piece that was missing” in providing service to the county.
“Especially when the kids are up in the middle of the night or whatever it is that may impact the next day and the rest of their life,” VanVickle said. “Those are hard numbers. It can't be disputed that we're responding to a significant number of calls where there's juveniles in the home. We had three Handle with Care reports over this past weekend alone. So it's something we're already using and facilitating.”
Area law enforcement organizations saw domestic calls rise amid the COVID-19 pandemic when spouses and families were in their homes more. VanVickle said those numbers have not receded to pre-pandemic levels. The sheriff’s office recently ran its year-end numbers from 2023 and domestic numbers and percentages “across the board” remained the same as the year prior.
VanVickle called children the county’s “most vulnerable population” and said his office strives to protect them the best it can.
“The Handle with Care program is just another avenue to try to provide resources to that population and provide any type of support that can be given to them in very difficult situations,” VanVickle said.
