What's your thought on tot-finders?

[chf jstano]

Almost without fail,at any public fire safety program I'm at, someone asks for tot-finder decals. I hand them out and suggest that they be placed on the outside lower left corner of interior bedroom doors.
I know there are mixed feelings on these. Is your dept still using them? What are your feelings on tot finders? STAY SAFE!!

[firefighteranne]

I come down on both sides of the fence!

On side #1--tot finder stickers are placed on a child's bedroom windows to help firefighters locate a room that needs to be searched first. Any help a firefighter can get at a scene of a fire is a good thing.

On side #2--tot finder stickers let ANYONE know what room of the house is vulnerable, especially to any child molestor.

We stock them at our fire department, but we do not give them out unless a parent asks for them. At that point, I tell them both sides of the issue. Some still want them, some, having never thought of side #2, decline them. If they still want them, they have to assure me they HAVE a home fire escape plan and have practiced it. The sticker does NOT replace a home escape plan.

[daysleeper47]

My earliest firefighting memory(as in, relating to firefighting, not being a firefighter) was getting my tot finder sticker and placing it in my window. That sticker was in my window until we moved out of that house 9 years later(even though I wasn't a tot anymore). I remember going to the FD HQ station when I was in third grade for an open house and going through the smokey maze they had set up(kind of a cheap safety house in those days) with an inspector and getting my picture in the paper. He visited my school a week later and let me sit in the engine while the other kids got to watch....ahhhhhh, the memories.

(ok, so it has nothing to do with the pros/cons of tot finders, but hey, they're memories.)

------------------
Joe
Daysleeper47
"When the bell goes ding-ding, its time to get on the woo-woo."
"Dusting desire - starting to learn. Walking through fire with out a burn..."

[MetalMedic]

We hand them out when parents request them along with the brochure explaining how to display them. However, they do not influence our search procedures a whole lot. If we see them, we might decide a left or right hand search based upon which will get us to that room first, but we still perform a systematic search so as to not pass a potential victim just to search an room that turns out to be empty.

The other problem I see with relying too much on Tot Finders is that people will often not remove them when they move or when the child has grown up. What was once the kids' room, usually ends up being an empty guest room once the nest is empty.

On the positive side, I think they are a good public relations tool. They may also increase fire awareness which is always a good thing.


------------------
Richard Nester
Orrville (OH) Fire Dept.

[Captain Gonzo]

My Department no longer issues tot finder stickers. We have found that once they are put into place, they stay there even long after the tots have grown up and have tots of their own!

I feel that the tot finder stickers give people a false sense of security...nothing can substitue for a good home fire escape plan!



------------------
And on the eighth day...God created Firefighters!
Captain Gonzo

[SRVFD2]

I pretty much agree with everything that's already be said. We give them out on request. The people who ask for them REALLY want, and appreciate, them - so, as Metalmedic said, it's a great PR tool.

[Inspector]

Our company stop using those decals. because of the possibilty of some criminal activity can happen if posted in a childs window.

Yours in Fire Safety
Jack

[FPOfficer308]

Our Department distributes "Tot-Spotter" decals because of the above mentioned problems. They go on the hall side of the bedroom door, 18 inches above the floor, hinge side. People tend to remove them from that location when kids grow up.
Let me know if you need an address:

gwilcox@commfiredistrict.com

[dch419]

To start off, the tot-finder stickers were developed with good intentions by the insurance industry. With that said, consider the problems with them. First off, from recruit academy we learn to effectively search a house by searching it entirely. If we searched only or focused on the rooms with the stickers in the windows, we might miss the kids sleeping down in the family room during a sleep-over. Also bringing to light the problem with displaying the number of children in the house. The sticker may say 1, but what about the friend sleeping over that hid in a closet? Granted, we shouldn't get tunnel vision just because of a sticker, but it happens. The morality of the country is on a steep decline, and there is a lot of psychotics out there that see the sticker as an invitation to your kids. As far as giving them out strictly as a PR thing, there are much better fire safety programs out there that the public will appreciate. I view the stickers as a liability. Think of the consequences and who they are going to come to when you couldn't find their son/daughter, and you're the one who gave them a tot-finder sticker. They also can be a danger to firefighters when they are left on houses where kids no longer live (grown up, moved, new homeowners w/o kids), FFs desperately searching a house for kids that aren't there. This all may seem drastic, but consider the nature of our job.

[This message has been edited by dch419 (edited 03-09-2001).]