Bringing The Lost Home Summit 2022

Second Annual Bringing The Lost Home Project Summit Recognizes Missing Person Response Success of Florida Agencies.

Tallahassee, Florida (Feb. 15, 2022) – Scent Evidence K9 will be hosting the second annual Bringing The Lost Home Project Summit in Tallahassee March 15 – 17, 2022 to recognize the successes and share the best practices of project participants and community partners. In just over 2 years since the Bringing The Lost Home Project was introduced in Florida, 114 people have been found and thousands at risk of wandering in Florida communities are better prepared and protected by the resources provided by the Bringing The Lost Home Project.
K9 teams from 14 participating Florida Sheriff’s Offices and Police Departments have been invited to attend the second annual event and share their lifesaving K9 search results and best practices with other agencies around Florida. Participants will have the opportunity to learn new K9 search skills through advanced scent discriminate trailing exercises to support the project’s goals of improving missing person response capabilities, K9 search recovery success, and community awareness of Florida’s vulnerable populations with Alzheimer’s Disease and autism who are at high risk of wandering and going missing.
The Summit agenda will include a half-day focus group on March 15, 2022, beginning at 9:00 am with special guests The Alzheimer’s Project CEO, John Trombetta, and Senior Resource Alliance President and CEO, Karla Radka, to discuss the programs impact on their communities. K9 Teams will then attend a special Advanced Urban K9 Trailing scenario-based training seminar with Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, to further their K9 search capabilities in urban settings.
The Bringing The Lost Home Project bill was sponsored by Florida House Representative, Scott Plakon and first signed into law by Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, in June 2019. In the past 2 years, Sheriff’s Offices in Escambia, Orange, Bay, Sumter, Seminole, Lee, St. Johns, Charlotte, Putnam, DeSoto, Nassau, Franklin, and Marion Counties, and The Tallahassee Police Department have implemented Bringing The Lost Home Project services. Agencies participating in the program have seen large increases in their K9 search response success rate and many of the K9 Teams have multiple missing person recoveries to their credit including the latest by St. Johns County Sheriff’s Deputy, Melanie Merritt and K9 Daisy. Dep. Merritt located a missing endangered woman on Feb. 13. The missing woman was found by the scent discriminate Bloodhound Team unconscious in the woods and transported to an area hospital. Merritt’s Bloodhound is also a big part of the Bringing The Lost Home Project. K9 Daisy was named after the favorite flower of Rep. Plakon’s late wife who passed from early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. The naming event took place at a Florida Senior Summit at the Tallahassee Capitol in 2020.
Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, and The Alzheimer’s Project CEO, John Trombetta, partnered to introduce the bill to help law enforcement better serve their populations with Alzheimer’s/Related Dementia and autism who are at high-risk of wandering and going missing. The Bringing The Lost Home Project enhances missing person response capabilities and recovery success by raising missing person awareness, mitigating risk, and improving search performance through the use of missing person response training, scent discriminate K9 trailing, and an innovative Scent Kit program that helps to create missing person awareness and provides an effective way for families and caregivers to prepare for a wandering event before it happens.
The program is focused on recovering individuals who have a propensity to wander or elope with a rapid response and recovery. The program provides Scent Preservation Kits® or “Scent Kits” to families with loved ones living with Alzheimer’s Disease or related dementia (ADRD), and autism.
The Alzheimer’s Project identifies groups and areas in need of services and works educate residents about the Scent Kits and Missing Person Awareness for at-risk groups. They also provide Alzheimer’s awareness training to the participating agencies to help mitigate potential trauma to the individual and expand law enforcement interaction skills with a person who has dementia.
Bringing The Lost Home Project also includes Missing Person Response Protocol and Scent Discriminate K-9 Trailing training for the participating agencies which will impact law enforcement response capabilities by increasing search success and decreasing the time and resources needed to find missing persons.
Protecting and Recovering People At Risk of Wandering
Florida has the second-largest Alzheimer’s Disease population in the U.S. with over 580,000 residents living with the disease. That number is projected to climb to 720,000 by 2025. Studies show that 60% or 3 of every 5 persons with Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia will wander and go missing. The numbers are almost as high for children with autism. The American Pediatric Association states that 50% of those with children with autism will wander/elope and go missing at least once before age 17.
Scent Evidence K9 CEO, Paul Coley, a former FBI Forensic Canine Operations Specialist, has made it his company’s mission to not only improve missing person response capabilities for communities but to protect individuals before they go missing.