Host: What should parents do if their child is missing?
Nancy McBride: If you believe your child is missing, if you can't locate your child quickly, meaning that you have done some cursory searches and you can't locate the child, you should contact law enforcement immediately and make a missing child report. There is no place in this country that puts a waiting list into play. Law enforcement must take the information immediately, they enter it into the National Crime Information Center(NSIC) computer, so that other people, other law enforcement agencies and the National Center know that that child is missing.
When you make the report, be prepared to talk about how tall your child is, how much the child weighs, what they were wearing that day, and most importantly make sure you have got that good quality photo that you can give to the law enforcement officer so that they can scan and we can make posters and get those posters out right away.
I think I want to say to parents and guardians out there, the National Center never gives up until we know what happened to the child. So we will have case managers involved in the case to help you as the parent or guardian search for you child, work with law enforcement, work with the media, make sure the word gets out quickly about your child and we will continue to keep that case open until we know what happened to the child. Hopefully, we will be able to get the child back safely.
I can say that since 1990, when the National Center's recovery rate was 62%, in the present day our recovery rate is 96%, and a lot of that is due to the fact that there is technology now that can get images out quickly. We have law enforcement who is trained. We work very closely with them, work closely with families and we all do everything we can to make sure that child comes home.
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