Child Find offers helpto keep children safe

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Losing a child in a busy shopping centre is harrowing. With adrenaline rushing, parents rush through the crowds looking for their toddler who has wandered off. Most times, the little guy or girl is spotted in a store or staring at a toy or candy through a window - most times. But what if your child simply disappears.

Statistics from Child Find Alberta are frightening for parents and guardians of children, but at the same time, the organization's recovery rate is very promising.

Although giving much of the credit to local law enforcement agencies, the public and other support, the Child Find program is an important piece of a puzzle that threatens the very core of security of the general public. . . What if my child went missing?

Although case loads of missing children reported to Child Find agencies in Alberta have doubled each year since 1994, the case closure rate of the organization is remaining at a steady 95 per cent.

Child Find was incorporated in Alberta in 1983. It is part of a national network delivering services to all families of missing children, and provides education and prevention programs to eliminate the crime of child abduction from happening.

From 1984 to the end of 1996, Child Find Alberta has opened 334 cases involving 414 missing children. In 1996 alone, there were 58 reported cases opened in Alberta.

Fifty-six of them were resolved. With slightly higher than 95 per cent success rates, the agency (as of Dec. 31, 1996) has 16 active cases involving 20 children in its files.

Those cases are broken down into five stranger abductions - where the victim is taken by persons unknown to them, four parental abduction cases, five runaway or voluntary missing cases, and two unknown circumstance abductions.

The role of Child Find, whether it be regional, national, or on an international level is to aid in the location of missing or abducted children. One common misconception about the organization is that they are an investigative body. That is not the case. Child Find believes it takes a group effort of all concerned community members to help locate a missing child. Part of that group effort comes in the form of education and awareness.

Child Find offers several programs and educational material on the best way to make sure your children don't become victims. All services are free of charge.

The provincial headquarters are in Calgary at #101, 424-10 St. N.W. and the Edmonton district office can be found at Bonnie Doon High School in room 230, 8205-90 Ave. The phone number at the Calgary office is (403) 270-FIND and the Edmonton phone number is (403) 465 1003. The cross-Canada toll free line is 1-800-387-7962.

The common denominator in all the pamphlets is common sense. The information should be learned by parents and guardians and taught to their children.