 Hi, we're here with another CTN member highlight and today we're featuring keeping kids safe And I'm here with Michael Mercer the director of operations for keeping kids safe and a volunteer for keeping kids safe Betty Reynolds Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you just to start off with for those people who might not know Okay, keeping kids safe is can you describe it? Sure keeping kids safe was started to hear about six years ago by by Michael O'Neill He had an idea that he was he's a he was a reserve deputy for the Cumbul County Sheriff's Department and Had an idea about how to Bring IDs photo IDs To you know to help law enforcement in case the child goes missing and this this developed into a More than just an ID program it turned into more of an awareness and education company and that's our mission today I've been with the company about little over two years and we're local nonprofit and What our our mission is to? Do do crime prevention through education and awareness? It's an acronym called septi and We want to bring awareness to kids from all age groups and Anywhere from anti-bullying programs cyber safety Child kid escape we do children in case there might be abducted We do and make we make it fun for them. So there's a variety of programs that we offer and so we offer to Children of all ages and I noticed that you you know you you have a wide range of things that you do You're a nonprofit organization. Do you have classes? Do you do one-to-one? How does how is that delivered? We usually go to schools We like to get into problem, you know the middle school middle the middle school and We bring our most popular program is the is the cyber safety program that we offer which also includes anti-bullying cyberbullying and sexting a little bit about teen suicide So there's a lot of different things that Because the kids today, you know 90 95% of the kids today are on the internet and that's where most of them become victims I'm a little ignorant myself about the technology. What's sexting? sexting is you know how a text is you text phone-to-phone this is a somebody would take a photograph of them and In either a naked photograph or a very scantily clothed Of themselves and share with other people Typically, it's boyfriend girlfriend, but a lot of times, you know how relationships are in high school in middle school They don't last very long and the other end, you know, somebody's gonna break up with somebody well that person has that picture of You know the naked child And that can be disseminated throughout once it's out in cyber world. It's out there So what specifically do you do around child sex trafficking? We have worked with representative Amy Volk from coastal Scarborough and She authored a bill to for Trafficking sex trafficking and what we're involved in is the awareness about how to Watch for signs if your child is being Lured in or is being groomed on the internet by these predators so we've worked closely with Amy and With the judiciary committee and also with the state, you know the state legislator to get this bill passed So there's harsher penalties in this bill, which is exciting because we have the law enforcement have You know more teeth and they're in the bills and the laws that they can convict these These predators out there. So we keep our kids safe Statistics nationally about bullying and some of the the dangers for children as far as strangers are concerned in abduction But how prevalent is it in Maine? I think bullying nationwide is prevalent I don't think Maine has is unique to that at all The the cyber the internet has enabled people to be anonymous when they bully They they don't have to live next door. They don't have to go in the same school as you do they can bully you from Anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world for that matter. So, you know cyber bullying is is really big Especially kids today, you know, both parents usually work a lot of kids stay home after school so they're latch-key and they come in and they are on the internet and they get bullied and and To the point where you know, some children are very frightened for their safety Betty, what's been your experience as a volunteer with Well, you know, I'm I am a business owner with my husband and we've organized a few events I personally have organized a couple of bullying events where we've had some really major people in Nancy Silverclyde from Archie comics Jim mayor from the Jimmy Buffett Band We've had some great people come together and get the awareness out there that it's not okay to bully it's just not okay to put negative words or actions, you know to other people and They're they're on a mission as well. They want to get this out there They they want this generation to be the generation that that says enough is enough and We've just it's amazing, you know, you look at Channel 8 and all these other channels that are really taking this on board and saying You know, we want to be a part of it We want we want to be able to not only bring awareness but bring the tools and that's what we try to do with keeping kids Safe is one of the tools is what is it that you're doing with your phone? Any kind of social media that you can actually Be aware of to not do because you know the fact is is predators are out there They're posing as teenagers and it's it's very difficult for kids to understand that who you're talking to that You don't directly know may not be who you think they are right and that's our you know That's one of our things is to make the kids aware make parents aware of the settings in the phone that they can help with their children and on the internet to you know Prevent these from it seems like awareness is a big part of what you do both for parents and for the kids to protect themselves How about when you the message of bullying you're delivering directly to in these schools to some people who might be bullies Have do you have any stories or successes that you that particularly strike you? We have a we have a boy from local Portland school district does the local district who's uh We've developed a steering committee, which is a committee of Teenagers of kids who help us stay relevant with what's going on in schools so this particular young man had been bullied his whole his whole life and He is now more of an advisor to us as to how How we can go in and educate people about anti-bullying so it's very helpful to have those kinds of people to be Articulated at such a young age to and want to make a difference So our the committee of youth is as part of our community action team that we've also created There must be especially a spark and inspiring to work with kids that have actually made a transformation And come through some of these things successfully with your help If people want to know more about your organization where they can go where they can get information What would they do you can go to our websites? www.KeepingKidsSafe.us and we also have a Facebook page and It's keeping kids safe If you just look up keeping kids safe, I don't know if there's a direct But if you go to our website you can link to it and my phone number is 207-699-8840 and Give us a call. We'd be happy to talk to you your school district superintendents Church leaders boy scouts you name it if there's kids We would like to be involved and and share some safety with them great. Well, thank you Michael Betty for joining us It's great. What you're doing great. Thank you