Worth County Holds MoCHIP Program for Children

On Saturday, April 2, 2011 the Allensville and Grant City Masonic Lodges held a Missouri Child Identification Program (MoCHIP) event at the Worth County R-III gymnasium. Over 35 children were processed at the event. The information gathered at the event enables law enforcement, within a matter of minutes, to use the CD-ROM created at the event and kept only by the parents, to be loaded into a computer directly from a police officer’s automobile and entered into the Amber Alert system. In effect, this event quickly and easily provides parents/guardians with a child’s complete personal profile required by law enforcement when an AMBER ALERT is issued.

The MoCHIP program consists of five major components—digital photographs, digital fingerprints, vital child information and emergency contacts, a dental bite impression, and two laminated ID cards. The photographs, fingerprints, and child data are burned onto a mini-CD that is compatible with the AMBER ALERT system already in place. The dental impression provides a virtual diagram of the child’s biting surface, which, like fingerprints is unique to each individual, and further supplies enough saliva to provide a DNA sample that can also be used as scent source for trained canine search teams. Combined, this five-part process provides a dramatic, time-sensitive recovery tool for authorities. Assisting the Masons at the event were members of the Grant City Lions Club, Worth County R-III FBLA student volunteers, the Worth County Sheriff's Department, Troopers Rob Dudek and Dale Reuter of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and Stefanie Rush on the dental work.