It's simple, cheap and effective. These are reasons behind a public safety initiative known as the ICE program being pushed by the Vancouver Association of Community Policing Centres.

ICE--or In Case of Emergency--wallet-sized cards allow carriers to list people or agencies emergency responders can contact in case of an accident or a medical problem where the person is unable to speak for themselves.

ICE started in the United Kingdom in 2005.

Eileen Mosca and Sophia Woo, two volunteers from Vancouver community policing centres, appeared at a Vancouver School Board meeting last week to talk about the program. Cards are expected to be distributed to the district's 56,000 students by the end of October. Lions and Rotary clubs sponsored printing costs and school liaison officers have promised to help distribute them. Older students can either carry ICE cards or program the information into their cellphones. Younger ones can keep cards in their backpacks.

First responders in the police and fire departments and ambulance service have agreed to look for an ICE card when dealing with victims, while the city proclaimed Sept. 15 to 27 ICE awareness week and added information about the program to its website.

Mosca said Vancouver police told her tracking down the background of people without identification is a daily problem in the Lower Mainland. She cited an incident last summer in the downtown area in which a young girl was found on the street in the middle of the night without a parent or guardian. The girl was eventually reunited with her mother. "Had she had an ICE card in her backpack, it would have been a piece of cake to get to her mother on a cellphone," Mosca said.

Mosca added that while people are advised to carry medical information about themselves, few do. Contacts can help track down that information for first responders, she said.

Judy Graves, the city's housing advocate, is seeing that ICE cards are distributed to homeless people, who are statistically most likely not to have identification and face more medical emergencies.

Cards are also available to the general public at community policing centres. Vancity sponsored the printing of 20,000 cards.

Mosca said the program is ideal for seniors and those with dementia. It also allows individuals to control who emergency responders contact in emergencies. Homeless people, for instance, can name family members, shelter managers, outreach workers or whomever they trust.

"We don't want people thinking this is to track you or anything like that. Most people put family members, but those who don't want to due to family rifts can mention other people," she said, adding, "We looked at public safety and we researched this and thought this is simple, this is cheap and this could really be effective for public safety.

"We want to make this not a flash in the pan. We'd like it to be sustainable in the city, to create a city where most people have this."

noconnor@vancourier.com