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DOWAGIAC — The Dowagiac Police Department is making children’s safety a priority during the coronavirus pandemic.

As more than 2,000 students from Dowagiac Union Schools are now home until at least April 5, the Dowagiac Police Department is offering check-ins for children who may be at home alone, while parents are continuing to work. 

The idea to offer residents within city limits with child welfare checks came to the police department after Director of Public Safety Steve Grinnewald saw the Bangor Police Department offering something similar. 

“I know Police Chief Tommy Simpson at Bangor, and saw somewhere from their site that they were doing it and thought it was a pretty good idea,” Grinnewald said. “We wanted to offer it for our community as well.”

As parents and students woke up last Friday to the news that schools across Michigan would be closing the following Monday, the police department alerted residents of the idea for welfare checks the following day in a Facebook post.

As of Wednesday, the police department had not received any requests, despite the Facebook post being shared more than 200 times and yielding positive comments.

“We didn’t think we were going to get a lot, but we thought we would get some,” Grinnewald said. “We just wanted to offer it to see if we could ease people’s minds a little bit because we figured it came together pretty quickly, and people didn’t have much of a chance to plan.”

A welfare check from the police department would look like an officer attempting to make contact with the children at their residences.

Grinnewald said the department would speak with parents before the welfare checks to ask if there is anything specific that officers should be looking out for.

“All of this would be done at the front door,” he said. “We are not looking to get inside anybody’s house or to look for anything inside the house. It’s merely checking on the kids to make sure they are OK”

Grinnewald said the department would take the check as far as the parents requested. If a parent wanted them to check inside the home on certain items, then that could be arranged.

Because the police department’s jurisdiction is only within Dowagiac city limits, Grinnewald said the welfare checks could only be offered to residents of Dowagiac. 

“I have not heard of any other departments within the county doing that, other than Bangor, but I believe Hartford Police Department as well is doing it,” Grinnewald said. “We are all stealing it like crazy and running with it.”

As more state mandates are made, the police department feels prepared if a larger influx of families requested welfare checks in the coming weeks.

“That was one of our concerns: if we throw this out there, what if we get a flood of them?” Grinnewald said. “Our School Resource Officer Ryan Murray is obviously not going to school now, so he is another officer we have available.”

Grinnewald said between himself, the school resource officer, two road patrol officers and Deputy Chief David Toxopeus, the department has at least five officers who can split up and make checks around the city.

“We believe we could handle it and certainly support it,” he said.

Interested families can request a welfare check by sending an email to publicsafetydirector@dowagiac.org, messaging the Dowagiac Police Department’s Facebook page or calling (269) 782-9743. The department asks requests to include each child at the residence’s name, age, parent contact information and address. The department will also do its best to accommodate requests for checks at specific times.