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Showing posts with label National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Child Safety Resources:
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Islanders vs. Rangers game to raise awareness for missing kids:
Published: March 7, 2013 9:03 AM
Long Island native Katie Beers will be at the game. (March 7, 2013 8:51 AM)
UNIONDALE - Fans going to tonight's hockey game in Uniondale will help raise awareness for missing kids across the country.
Officials say $2 from each ticket to tonight's Islanders, Rangers game will go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Long Island native Katie Beers, who was abducted and held captive 20 years ago in Bay Shore, will be on hand.
Beers will be joined by John Walsh, the co-founder of the missing children's group.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Runaway Children - NCMEC
Runaway Children
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® intakes reports about missing children, younger than 18 years of age, who have run away from a parent, guardian or state care facility. Case management teams within the Critical and Runaway Unit provide technical assistance to law enforcement and support the runaway's family. Case management teams also partner with law enforcement agencies to help locate runaway children believed to be victimized through prostitution.
What to do if your child has run away
- Immediately call your local law enforcement agency.
- After you have reported your child missing to law enforcement, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST® (1-800-843-5678).
Ask law enforcement to enter information about your child into the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, known as NCIC. Federal law requires a specific, timely response from law enforcement agencies. If you have any difficulties getting law enforcement to take a report or enter information about your child into this database see the federal laws listed in the Legal Resources for Runaway Children section. Also contact NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or your missing child clearinghouse.
When contacting NCMEC be prepared to provide detailed biographical information about your child as well as information about the circumstances surrounding the runaway event.
How can NCMEC's case management team help?
The case management team will coordinate the creation and dissemination of posters to help generate leads. Information about your child must be entered in the FBI's National Crime Information Center so a poster can be created. The case management team will assist in forwarding leads called into NCMEC to the investigating law enforcement agency. It will also make appropriate referrals to families in crisis and needing emotional support to NCMEC's Family Advocacy Division and/or Team HOPE.
For available services and support see NCMEC's Victim and Family Support and Team HOPE services.
What if I believe my child is being victimized through prostitution?
When you make a report with law enforcement and NCMEC let all parties know of your suspicion and the basis of your belief. The case management team will coordinate with other NCMEC divisions as well as local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. For more information contact NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
Other resources
- For information about state laws regarding runaway children, refer to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and National Network for Youth's publication Alone Without a Home: A State-by-State Review of Laws Affecting Unaccompanied Youth.
- Visit the National Runaway Safeline for more information on runways, how to leave a message for a child and transportation assistance for runaways.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Virtual Tour of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children:
Missing Children
When a child goes missing the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® is ready to assist families and law enforcement agencies 24 hours a day. Each case brings its own set of unique challenges, and NCMEC is prepared to help meet those challenges.
NCMEC's case management teams work each case on an individual basis by providing coordinated support and access to analytical and technological resources. NCMEC is prepared to assist in all missing child cases, even when a child has been missing for a long period of time, was abducted internationally by a parent or has special needs.
NCMEC works closely with approximately 400 corporate photo partners who disseminate photos of missing children to millions of homes across the U.S. every day. NCMEC is able to assist in the most serious child abduction cases by sending specially trained, retired law enforcement professionals to provide support and technical assistance to local law enforcement agencies.
No missing child is ever forgotten, no matter how long they have been missing. Through the Biometrics Team NCMEC coordinates the collection of DNA, dental records and other unique identifiers from family members to search for potential matches, even for long-term cases. The Case Analysis Unit provides direct analytical support to law enforcement for missing and unidentified deceased child cases.
Every day NCMEC works to find missing children and reunite them with their families.
Friday, February 15, 2013
NCMEC - Keeping Kids Safer eNewsletter:
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Take 25 is a preventive child safety campaign created by NCMEC in honor of National Missing Children’s Day. Annually honored on May 25th, this day serves as a reminder to the nation to make child safety a national priority. You can take action by hosting or planning to participate in a Take 25 community event, or simply making an effort to spend time talking to kids about safety.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
WEWS Producer at the FBI: Missing Kids
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The following day, a team from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children arrived in Cleveland. A few hours after their arrival, an alert Cleveland FBI agent formed a hunch that led to the discovery of little Emilliano.
Sadly, the toddler had been dead for days. It would seem the initial story told by his mother to investigators the day before was not entirely truthful after all.
It’s the worst outcome imaginable, but it’s also a reality that some families face daily. About 2,000 children are reported missing every day in the U.S. It's a terrifying fear that strikes at the heart of any parent. Who do you turn to when this happens?
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children specializes in finding missing children and it has a pretty decent success rate. And the FBI is more than happy to get help from them.
NCMEC’s Alexandria, Va. office is located a few Metro stops away from the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in downtown Washington, D.C. I was fortunate enough to be a guest of both as a member of the FBI Citizens’ Academy of Cleveland.
In fact, you’re probably familiar with its most famous founder, John Walsh, whose son Adam was abducted in 1981 and murdered.The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, founded in 1984, does just what it sounds like. It's a non-profit organization that exists only as a resource for law enforcement agencies, as well as exploited children or their families.
In 1990, NCMEC’s recovery rate for missing children was just over 60 percent. Today, its recovery rate is 97 percent.
That number is impressive. But what I found even more impressive about NCMEC was how efficient the organization is. In its time, it has formed several different departments and databases to specifically handle the different needs involved in missing and exploited children.
Most of the cases NCMEC investigates fall into three categories: family abductions, forensics or runaways. Most often when a child disappears, it's a family abduction. Maybe a marriage turned sour and one spouse took their child and left without even leaving a note. These cases happen and sometimes the search can last decades.
NCMEC’s main division is its Missing Children Division. Its goal is to find missing children and prevent their victimization. It has a call center that operates around the clock. And no matter what language the caller speaks, the hotline is literally staffed with someone who can speak it, too.
The Forensic Services Division focuses on children who have been missing for a long time or cases where the victim is unidentified. Science plays a large part in this division.
If you’ve ever seen an age progression photograph, showing what a child who disappeared in 2000 would look like now, chances are a NCMEC analyst helped make it.
But how do they do it?
Forensic experts typically start with the last known photograph of the child, then they look at pictures of the parents at the same age, as well as pictures of siblings. Using those features very often helps create a startlingly accurate age rendition.
In those cases, there is still a chance the missing child is alive. But there are cases where the remains of dead children are found and the only hope is to identify them. Sometimes all investigators have to work with is a skeleton.
But NCMEC has experts who handle those cases, too. Their job is to work with the skull and study its bone structure in an attempt to reconstruct what the victim looked like. This may sound like a stretch, but both pictures of reconstructed faces and age-progression composites have solved many cases, leading to closure or reunions for estranged families.
It is also a grim truth that some missing and exploited children fall prey to sex trafficking. Some of them are runaways. NCMEC has a division for these cases that has built up extensive suspect and victim bios in recent years, and those databases helps serve to locate victims. NCMEC also helps U.S. Marshals track non-complaint sex offenders.In some instances, children who never realized they grew up a missing child, spotted their own composite photos and called NCMEC, eventually leading to a reunion with their rightful family.
But NCMEC’s job is not over once a child is recovered and reunited with his or her family.
There have been cases where a boy was abducted at a very young age, grew up to believe his abductors were his real family, only to be recovered a decade later as a teenager. In other instances, sex trafficking victims who have lived on the streets for so long, have grown a distrust of law enforcement and need a more patient approach to open up.
That’s where the Family Reunification Unit comes in. This division specializes in helping families reunite, address their trauma, and learn how to speak to each other without letting guilt or unrealistic expectations sabotage the reunion.
But all of this is simply a crash course into the systems that NCMEC developed over the years. Each one has been fine-tuned to help do the work that many local law enforcement agencies may not have the time, resources or manpower to do on their own.
NCMEC is not a law enforcement agency. Instead, its primary goal is to provide a service to law enforcement agencies.
The problem is, not every law enforcement agency is even aware that NCMEC exists. When a child disappears, NCMEC and all its resources are available at no cost or glory to help locate that child.
Simply enough, NCMEC is there for you.
The FBI has a strong working relationship with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and it hopes to spread the word about the good work the organization does so more law enforcement agencies can utilize its resources to help bring families back together.
Like many law enforcement agencies, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children thrives on people doing what they feel is right. If you have a tip, spot a child you recognize from a missing poster, or even if you suspect you may have been abducted as a child, you can call NCMEC’s 24-hour free hotline 1-800-THE-LOST.
More information can be found at: www.missingkids.com.
[ Look for further updates from Colin McDermott’s experience with the FBI Citizens’ Academy in the coming days]
Monday, November 26, 2012
Vigil marks 2 years of boys’ disappearance:
Family clings to hope brothers may return
Vigil marks 2 years of boys’ disappearance
BY MARK REITER AND VANESSA McCRAY
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
Karri Waters, left, an aunt, McKenna Shaffer, center left, a cousin, Mason Shaffer, center right, and Kristy Shaffer, right, join the ceremony to remember Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner Skelton. They were at Morenci's Wakefield Park on Sunday. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGTEnlarge | Buy This Photo
MORENCI, Mich. — It has been two years since Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner Skelton vanished from this Lenawee County community near the Ohio-Michigan border.
Reminders of the boys, who were ages, 9, 7, and 5, respectively, when they were last seen on Thanksgiving Day, 2010, are scattered throughout the town of 2,500. Faded yellow homecoming ribbons wrap around trees and light poles, and posters offering rewards for information about their whereabouts hang in the doors and windows of offices and shops.
While the mystery surrounding the boys’ disappearance haunts the community, their mother, Tanya Zuvers, and her family refuse to give up hope they will be found and returned safely.
Roughly 100 family, friends, community members, and supporters gathered Sunday afternoon at Wakefield Park in Morenci to share memories of the three boys and watch the family unveil a plaque in their honor. The boys’ likenesses and names are inscribed on the plaque, as are as the words “faith, hope, love.”
It’s attached to a boulder from the Hudson, Mich., farm of Ms. Zuvers’ sister and brother-in-law. The rock symbolizes not just the family and community’s love for the boys, but also voices the great unknown question of the last two years: Where are they?
Photos of what Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner might look like now have been posted on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Web site. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGTEnlarge | Buy This Photo
Its placement in the park, underneath one of three trees dedicated to the boys, is intended to be temporary. If the boys return home alive, the monument will move to Ms. Zuvers’ house; if only bodies are found, the rock will serve as a headstone, the boys’ mother and grandmother both said.
Some in the crowd sniffled and teared up as Ms. Zuvers and others recalled memories of the three boys. The family also thanked people for their support.
Beverly Zuvers, the boys’ grandmother, said the tragedy binds the town.
“It’s tied us together. We’ve always had a loving, caring community,” she said and noted that residents now are more aware of child safety issues.
The family continues to reach out to the community and beyond to raise awareness about the boys. Ms. Zuvers recently turned to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for help, and age-progressed photos of each child were posted on the agency’s Web site. She showed the photos at Sunday’s event, and the images also were displayed at the town fire station, where community members gathered after the park event.
She said the missing-children’s center blended photos of the boys with images of their mother around the same ages to project what they might look like now.
“I am hoping that someone will be able to see these photos and recognize that they resemble children that they may have seen,” she said. “Hopefully that will bring in the tip that we need.”
A plaque honoring the boys has been placed on a boulder in Wakefield Park. If the boys are found alive, the plaque will be moved to their mother's home. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGTEnlarge | Buy This Photo
Ms. Zuvers and the boys’ father, John Skelton, were in the midst of a bitter divorce when she gave permission for him to take the children to his home, where they were last seen in the back yard.
They were reported missing by their mother the next day, after Skelton failed to return the boys. During that time, he was taken to a Wauseon hospital for treatment for an ankle injury suffered in an apparent suicide attempt.
Skelton gave authorities different accounts of the boys’ whereabouts. He testified during a court hearing that he handed them over to a secret child-protection group. But he gave other statements too, including recounting a dream about seeing the boys and their belongings near a trash bin.
Skelton, 41, pleaded no contest to charges of unlawful imprisonment and was sentenced in September, 2011, to 10 to 15 years in prison. He is housed at the Chippewa Correctional Facility and may seek release in 2020.
Weeks after the boys’ disappearance, law enforcement changed the focus of the case from a search to a homicide investigation, with their father as the suspect.
Morenci Police Chief Larry Weeks doesn’t discount the efforts of Ms. Zuvers and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to publicize the case, but his position hasn’t changed. He believes Skelton killed his sons during the early-morning hours of Nov. 26, 2010, and hid the bodies.
“His choice to hide behind this outlandish story is selfish and cowardly. If he cared about his sons at all, he would disclose the truth and bring resolution to this case,” the police chief said in a statement.
More than 1,300 tips have been collected during the two years, said Chief Weeks, who has been assisted by the FBI and Michigan State Police in the investigation.
In addition to reaching out to the missing-children agency, Ms. Zuvers has embraced social networking and the Internet to keep her sons in the public eye.
Details about the boys are posted on the sites — skeltonbrothers.org and facebook.com/ MissingSkelton Brothers — as well as on the posters offering a $60,000 reward for information leading to their return.
Also, through the efforts of an awareness group that Ms. Zuvers and others began, volunteers recently handed out 3,000 flyers with information about the boys at roadside rest areas and truck stops. Supporters continued fund-raising Sunday for an awareness effort. Ms. Zuvers’ cousin Kristy Shaffer of Morenci presided over a baked-goods table at the fire station.
Mrs. Shaffer has two children who were close to the missing boys and said the boys frequently come up in discussions around town and with her own children.
“We would just always try to stay positive and upbeat and continue to remind them that we will bring them home,” she said.
Anyone with information about the boys is asked to call Morenci police at 517-458-7104.
Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
PSU Child Sexual Abuse Conference: Ernie Allen
PSU Child Sexual Abuse Conference: Ernie Allen
Ernie Allen, President and CEO, International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children; Founding Chairman, National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children. Topic: What Can You and Your Community Do about Child Sexual Abuse.
Introduced by Delilah Rumburg, CEO, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape.
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