Publicising missing kids

[Carana]

Quite a few resources here

http://www.missingkids.com/Resources

This may be a resource for anyone who is worried about a missing teen:

http://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/our-solution/where-we-work/uk/?gclid=CLeIm4ju4bgCFUld3godL28Aog#.Uf1FulPW_fZ

[Carana]

Vulnerable adults ?

"80% of  missing persons are in fact voluntary ones. It's emotionally hard for the family and friends, but people are free to change their life."

Who are the 80% of missing persons that you are referring to?

[AnneGuedes]

"80% of  missing persons are in fact voluntary ones. It's emotionally hard for the family and friends, but people are free to change their life."

Who are the 80% of missing persons that you are referring to?

Those stats are french and the 80% are minors (teens) and adults. What do you mean with "vulnerable" ?

[Carana]

Those stats are french and the 80% are minors (teens) and adults. What do you mean with "vulnerable" ?

You didn't state who the 80% concerned.

[AnneGuedes]

You didn't state who the 80% concerned.

What do you mean ? Their close families of course.

[Carana]

What do you mean ? Their close families of course.

Are we at cross-purposes, Anne?

I'd said:

    You didn't state who the 80% concerned.

You said:

What do you mean ? Their close families of course.

But you'd said earlier:
"80% of  missing persons are in fact voluntary ones. It's emotionally hard for the family and friends, but people are free to change their life."



??

[AnneGuedes]

Are we at cross-purposes, Anne?

I'd said:

    You didn't state who the 80% concerned.

You said:

What do you mean ? Their close families of course.

But you'd said earlier:
"80% of  missing persons are in fact voluntary ones. It's emotionally hard for the family and friends, but people are free to change their life."



??

??
As I replied to you who were those 80% (minors - teens - and adults) and you insisted "You didn't state who the 80% concerned", I presumed you meant "who are the people concerned by those 80% who intentionally disappear".

[Redblossom]

A few posts on another thread related to recommendations and methods concerning generating publicity for missing kids and keeping their profile high.


Lots of new ways have emerged since then, including this one:

'QR codes' replace milk cartons in quest to find missing children
Posted:   04/09/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated:   04/09/2012 11:51:30 AM MDT
By By Julia Prodis Sulek
San Jose Mercury News (MCT)

Say you're sitting in a Starbucks and see a teenager who looks just like that picture on the missing-child poster you scanned with your smartphone in Safeway two weeks ago.

But you're not sure, so you whip out your phone and check.

Bingo. It's the girl. You click on the highlighted hotline number, which immediately connects you to the cops, who arrive in two minutes flat.

Forget those old forlorn photos on milk cartons. The latest big thing in the search for missing children are "QR codes," a bar-code-like "quick response" technology that puts missing-kid posters in thousands of people's purses and pockets. After Facebook and Twitter, the codes are the latest tools in the tech and social media box aimed at finding kids who vanish.

The day after 15-year-old Sierra LaMar disappeared on her way to her Morgan Hill, Calif., bus stop three weeks ago, a Santa Clara County sheriff's sergeant called San Jose, Calif.-based Child Quest International, suggesting that a QR code be put on Sierra's missing fliers.

Her friends and family also have been tweeting about candlelight vigils, Facebooking a variety of photos and videos of her and using social media to express sympathy and reach out to volunteer searchers.

Earlier this week, the KlaasKids Foundation encouraged people to swap their Facebook profile pictures with those of Sierra to keep her image in the spotlight in what they called an "online vigil." And volunteers have plastered her missing poster _ complete with QR codes _ across Northern California.

"The problem is educating the community on what a QR code is," said Child Quest's Anthony Gonzalez. "People who know about it rave about it. Others have never seen it and wonder, "What is this thing on the poster?'"

QR codes are printed squares of jumbled black lines and squiggles. When a smartphone equipped with a free QR code app points the phone's camera at the image, it links directly to a website with more photos of the missing child, information and hotline phone numbers. (Haven't seen a missing poster with the QR code? Go to http://uqr.me/missing-sierra-lamar and snap a photo of the computer screen!)

"It essentially makes the missing poster portable," said Stephen Watkins, a Toronto man who works with Child Quest and modified QR codes that were first developed by Toyota to track car parts.

The idea came to him, he said, when he was at a Walmart and noticed customers passing missing posters, glancing briefly and moving on. He is using QR codes and other social media to continue his search for his own two sons, who in 2009 were taken to Poland by their mother.

To humanize the QR code, like he did with his sons' and Sierra's, he embeds a photograph of the missing child.

Technology has come a long way since the milk carton campaign in the 1980s, devised by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That campaign lasted six months and _ despite becoming part of the pop culture of the time _ was considered a failure, said the center's Bob Lowery.

"People weren't really paying attention to the images on the milk cartoons," he said. "The only ones paying attention were younger children enjoying their cereal."

When the center opened in 1984, it had a recovery rate of 62 percent for missing children. Now, nearly three decades later, that rate is 98 percent. "It's because of better awareness of missing children and also our ability to connect through social media, Amber alerts and all the tools we have," Lowery said.

Even as media interest fades, Sierra's family and supporters can continue to tweet and retweet and add sympathetic friends to their Facebook accounts to keep the story going. After three weeks, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department is still staffing its emergency operations center around the clock, staffing tip lines, putting GPS devices on their searchers, and keeping tabs on Sierra's so-far-dormant Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Robert McConnell, a computer programmer from Macedonia, Ohio, credits Facebook with getting him closer to finding his daughter. Even though he had full custody, he said, his daughter's mother took her to her native Indonesia and never came back.

"I thought my only avenue might be trying to get as many friends as I could in Indonesia on Facebook," he said. "I posted my daughter's pictures and everything and sure enough, about a year ago, I was contacted by a woman who knew her."

But the trail went cold when the mother and daughter, Bianca Damanik, now 9 years old, moved to somewhere near Jakarta.

But McConnell isn't giving up.

"I'm just hoping when she gets old enough," he said, "she'll go out and try to find me."

Read more: 'QR codes' replace milk cartons in quest to find missing children - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/outwest/ci_20356634/qr-codes-replace-milk-cartons-quest-find-missing#ixzz2atIr1VHL

this board is about what happened  to Maddie Mccann and the case in question,  NOT other kids or adults ingeneral, none of which are connected, so whatis the point of this  thread on this forum apart  from obfuscating and detracting, this is a Maddie missing forum,not a 100 k missing people forum

[sadie]

this board is about what happened  to Maddie Mccann and the case in question,  NOT other kids or adults ingeneral, none of which are connected, so whatis the point of this  thread on this forum apart  from obfuscating and detracting, this is a Maddie missing forum,not a 100 k missing people forum

Excuse me Reed.

This thread is about missing children

Itis entitled: Re: Publicising missing kids

[Redblossom]

Excuse me Reed.

This thread is about missing children

Itis entitled: Re: Publicising missing kids

So it deserves a forum of its own then as it relates to people outwith this case, might get more readership too. Under the board section called


Disappeared and Abducted Children and Young Adults

[Carana]

Perhaps, but not necessarily.

The McCanns have been criticised for how they tried to handle the disappearance. They were criticised for trying to publicise her disappearance, but if they hadn't, that would have been suspicous as well.

They didn't have access to a handbook right then to help guide them through the early days. Everyone just went by instinct.

There is a guide out there:


It seems that what they tried to do coincides with the advice given.

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/PDF6A.pdf


Casual readers are unlikely to read a dedicated topic about resources for missing kids. However, a number may still be interested in the Madeleine case and may just read about the resources available.

It's a bit like first aid - people think they know what they'd do in a given situation, but in a panic, they're clueless.

[AnneGuedes]

It's a bit like first aid - people think they know what they'd do in a given situation, but in a panic, they're clueless.

This is very true. In a panic, people run around like headless chicken. The trouble with the McCanns is that they didn't !

[Benice]

Perhaps, but not necessarily.

The McCanns have been criticised for how they tried to handle the disappearance. They were criticised for trying to publicise her disappearance, but if they hadn't, that would have been suspicous as well.

They didn't have access to a handbook right then to help guide them through the early days. Everyone just went by instinct.

There is a guide out there:


It seems that what they tried to do coincides with the advice given.

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/PDF6A.pdf


Casual readers are unlikely to read a dedicated topic about resources for missing kids. However, a number may still be interested in the Madeleine case and may just read about the resources available.

It's a bit like first aid - people think they know what they'd do in a given situation, but in a panic, they're clueless.

Thanks for that Carana -  I've put it in 'my favourites' to read later.  In the meantime on just glancing through I thought this was interesting advice regarding the first 48 hours of the search.

QUOTE
In the initial stages of the search devote your time to providing information to and answering questions from the investigators.

Once you discover your child is missing, you will desperately want help with the search.  You may, in fact, wonder how you can possibly stand by and let others look for your child.  But the reality is that in most instances, the best use of your energy is not on the physical search itself.   Rather, you need to provide information and to answer questions.
UNQUOTE

Apart from their first frantic searches in the hours immediately after Madeleine disappeared - that is what they tried to do.

[AnneGuedes]

There is a guide out there:


It seems that what they tried to do coincides with the advice given.

http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/PDF6A.pdf

Are you suggesting they had read that guide before ? I find it hard to believe it.

[Carana]

Are you suggesting they had read that guide before ? I find it hard to believe it.

No, that is not what I said, in fact quite the opposite.

It just so happens that what they did do is the advice given by other parents of missing kids who came together to write the booklet to assist others.