YORKTON — The Yorkton Tribal Council Emergency Management says an alert app for Indigenous communities helps locate missing persons alive when minutes count.
“We use it for everything. Most of the time, it’s the missing person alert for search and rescue,”said Yorkton Tribal Council Emergency Management Co-ordinator Bonnie Austman.
She points to recent cases where missing people were found within 24 hours and says getting the word out about a missing person as soon as possible is key to finding them safe.
“We specifically deal with First Nations, and we activate our own team because the RCMP and the province officially need permission to enter onto First Nations land. With search and rescue, most of the time the RCMP are in charge, but we usually get a call from the chief requesting our team”, Austman said. “First Alerts definitely fills that gap as we are often the first on the scene and out searching.”
In some cases, the RCMP and the province cannot issue amber alerts because they must follow more specific criteria.
With Talking Stick’s FirstAlerts, emergency services personnel send an emergency alert from a smartphone or laptop, just like typing and sending texts.
“We put our own information in there about looking into yards (and sheds), things like that,” said Austman, “And it’s really helped.”
FirstAlerts is a First Nation-controlled alerting system within the Talking Stick app. In 2022, the Talking Stick app launched across the province and has established itself as a virtual resource for Indigenous peer-to-peer mental health support.
First Alerts was added to Talking Stick in February 2024 as a response to the Saskatchewan coroner’s inquest recommendation regarding the James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon mass casualty event that occurred in September 2022.
The alert has a special designation from Apple and Google Play stores to interrupt phones even when set to silent.
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by Lisa Risom, sasktoday.ca