Missing Child Series

Child safety service InstantAmber is currently running a missing children case series on their blog to highlight some of the more well known children who have gone missing over the years. Already profiled are Adam Walsh, Polly Klaas and Amber Hagerman. If you have ever wanted to read more on missing children, this would be a great place to start. From InstantAmber.com:

We will be writing about some of the case stories, which illustrate loss, bravery, and hope.  We at InstantAmber believe that every parent should be as prepared as possible for a missing child emergency.  If the unthinkable occurs, law enforcement has the best possible tool to safely recover the missing child.

 

Kansas Amber Alert

Officials in the state of Kansas are stepping up their awareness program for the Amber Alert system. The campaign, consisting of two radio ads and two television spots, aims to remind people about the existence of the Amber Alert program and also the wireless alert system.

"It is important the public know and understand the criteria for an AMBER Alert to be issued," [Kansas Attorney General Steve] Six said. "These public service announcements will help Kansans remember that law enforcement will only issue AMBER Alerts when they believe the public can help locate a child under 18 who is believed to have been abducted and in serious danger."

 

Twitter and Amber Alerts

One of the newest web 2.0 technologies out there is a communication tool called Twitter. With Twitter, you can subscribe to what other people are saying, or their “tweets”. One of the greatest uses of Twitter has become news outlets using the network to spread the word of breaking news, or other entities doing the same. One great usage of Twitter is the official Amber Alert Twitter feed. As soon as an Amber Alert is issued, the system will let you know and you can help spread the word as well. If you are a Twitter user and are interested in following Amber Alerts via Twitter, then you can follow them at twitter.com/amberalert.

Child Safety Service

There are a lot of child safety options out there when it comes to storing our child’s information should you need it in the event something happens to them. One of the more interesting ones is a service called InstantAmber that instead of storing your child’s vital information on a piece of physical media, it stores it on the web. The company is offering up a 30 day free trial of the service if it is something you think you’d be interested in using. From InstantAmber.com:

With the 30 day free trial, you can explore all of the amazing tools of InstantAmber. Your child’s information will include their basic vital stats as well as recent photos, their medial information, and information on other relationships they have. And a great thing about storing all of this information on the web? It can easily be updated with the click of a button….no need to update your child’s info on discs or flash drives which is not only tedious but can easily be lost. We all know how quickly children grow and change, and with the ability to keep this information up to date, you’ll save valuable time in the search for your child should you ever need to access it.

 

Missing Child Database

Massachusetts law makers are currently trying to pass legislation that would help form a database of missing children and runaways in the state. The database would help law enforcement across the board in tracking missing children who are often pulled into child prostitution rings.

Laurie Myers, who runs the victim advocacy group Community VOICES, expressed frustration the bill has languished.

“A lot of these children run away to other towns or they become involved in child prostitution,” she said. “There’s no coordinated effort to look for the most vulnerable kids in our society.”

Baddour too is frustrated but said he’s “encouraged” by talks he’s had with Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration about the bill.

With as many as 2,000 children reported missing daily in the United States, most states have a central clearinghouse but Massachusetts does not. The Massachusetts State police Web site, however, lists a dozen teens as “endangered runaways” and provides links to various law enforcement agencies.

 

Secondary Amber Alert System

A new secondary Amber Alert system called the Rilya Alert system has popped up via an organization called Peas In Their Pods.

For the Rilya Alert System to work, parents of missing children should immediately contact their local police department to file a report and request that their child be entered into the National Crime Information Center Missing Person File. Once the report is filed, parents should immediately contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which serves as a liaison between law enforcement and the community. Parents should then contact Peas In Their Pods by calling 516-333-9882. Peas In Their Pods will then contact local news stations and radio stations to have the missing child’s information broadcasted. This broadcasted information is known as the Rilya Alert.

Why the new system?

“The founder of Peas In Their Pods, Janice Lowery, was frustrated that the abducted, African American children were not receiving an adequate amount of media attention,” said Gaetane Borders, president of the organization. “Ms. Lowery felt that starting Peas In Their Pods was a calling from God.”

The purpose of the Georgia based Peas In Their Pods is to spread awareness about the number of African American children who are reported missing every day and to make sure that they do receive attention from the media. With help from the creator of the Amber Alert, the organization produced the Rilya Alert System.

 

Too Many False Alarms?

While Amber Alerts have been on the decline around the country, they have been up this year in the state of Massachusetts, which has become a concern for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"Those Amber coordinators have been very, very careful and diligent in safeguarding the overuse and abuse of the system because we’re afraid of the public becoming desensitized," says Bob Hoever of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

And what would that mean?

"What we typically call it is the Car Alarm Syndrome. After a while when people hear a car alarm going off they don’t even pay attention and that’s what we don’t want to happen," Hoever says.

There are some detractors of the system, however in the state of Massachusetts, all 22 children which Amber Alerts have been issued for have been recovered safely.

 

Airport Safety

A little too true to Hollywood? This story from the Associated Press sounds more like the movie “Home Alone” than real life, but it did indeed happen to a family traveling from Israel to France.

Israeli airport police say a couple going on a European vacation remembered to bring their duty-free shopping and their 18 suitcases, but forgot their 3-year-old daughter at the airport.

The couple and their five children were late for a flight to Paris Sunday and made a mad dash to the gate. In the confusion, their daughter got lost. A policeman found her wandering around the terminal, crying for her mother.

Israeli media report Monday that the ultra-Orthodox Jewish parents, whose names were not released, didn’t notice the child was missing until they were told, in the air, that she had been found at Ben-Gurion airport.

The child, accompanied by an airline staffer, took the next flight to Paris where she was safely reunited with her parents.

Summer is always a hectic time at airports as many families travel for the holidays, so always best to remember to be extra careful when it comes to traveling with children.