Our Story
Liesje, the Founder and CEO of Universal Alert, has 4 children of which 3 are autistic. Her second to last son, Jayden, is classed as severely autistic. He has a learning disability, is a situational mute and his mental capacity age is at pre-school level. He is the reason that Universal Alert is here today.
On the morning of the 11th March 2013, a then 8 year old Jayden, woke up and decided he was going to school. I heard him and jumped out of bed to meet him in the hallway as he came out of his room. I said "Good morning" to him and he replied with “Jayden go to school”. I replied saying "Yes Jayden go to school” not realising that I had made a huge mistake because I didn’t say “Jayden go to school on the school bus”.
Jayden then rushed around the house getting himself ready for school. I was overjoyed by this as it was still early and my 2 year old daughter and I were not dressed as yet. I was sorting out things in the house, when I heard the front door shut. It didn’t take me long to realise that Jayden had gone through the front door. I was frantic and hysterical. I ran outside screaming his name. I couldn’t go after him because I wasn’t dressed and I had my 2 year old daughter who also was not yet dressed appropriately. I called my mum and my brother and then called his school bus. I was just so upset. The bus escort told me to call the police. I didn’t even think to do that because I was just so worried.
When I got through to the police, I couldn’t speak properly. They asked me questions like, 'What was he wearing?', 'How long has he been gone?', 'Did you see what direction he went in?', 'Will he be able to say where he lives?', 'Does he know his address?'. There were too many questions and I was too distressed to answer them clearly. Eventually, they decided to send an officer around to my house because they couldn’t get any real answers from me. Jayden was missing for 3.5 hours. While we were waiting, I asked the police woman who was with me, "what will they do when they found him". She was puzzled by this question.
I explained that he is autistic and when he is anxious he can lash out or jump up and down, and it may not be easy to get him into a police car. She told me they may have to handcuff him if they had any problems getting him into the car.
I was absolutely horrified and told them if they did that, they will scar him mentally for life and he will never trust a police officer ever again. She asked me what I would like them to do. I told her to bring me to him and she agreed. I asked her, what is the worse case scenario of dealing with an autistic person when they are distressed. She told me that they had gassed a few people before. I felt sick to my stomach.
Jayden was eventually found by another parent who lucky he knew really well and she brought him home to me.
A couple years before, my second eldest high functioning autistic son, was spot searched by the police walking home from school. He was clearly upset when he arrived home as he was only 12 years old at the time. I began to panic at the thought of the same thing happening to Jayden, he would not have a clue what was happening to him. He wouldn’t even be able to tell them who he was and explain to them that he couldn’t possibly be the person they are looking for, because he didn’t understand the world the same as a non autistic person does.
Following on from these experiences, I wrote down, what is now the Universal Alert on a piece of paper. I showed this piece of paper with my idea on it to the police woman and asked her, "if you had this app would it help". She read my idea and said ‘ YES! This would make a huge difference"
and the rest is history!