How does your neighborhood rate when it comes to care and concern for its children?

I am rating Richmond, Virginia as a city where they really care about their children. The reason why is because just today, a mentor friend of mine from Richmond told me something that is of interest to any parent.

She said that school bus drivers cannot let children off the bus anymore unless a parent or family member is there to meet them at the bus stop. The children cannot be alone and won’t be vulnerable to sex predators who stalk the children after school.

It is true my mentor friend lives in a safe neighborhood where there is not a lot of crime, but no neighborhood is safe anymore. I am glad that Richmond is not taking any unnecessary risks and I hope your city’s schools are taking every precaution they can to prevent harm to your children.

Another good friend of mine teaches school administrators what to do in emergencies. This includes things like what to do if there is a tornado, a shooting incident, a bomb threat… He told me how many schools are very concerned about safety and sets plans in motion for emergencies for them. He also mentioned that others still have their heads in the sand, and think something bad can never happen to them.

It is so great that many schools show they really care about their students.

What About the Missing?

But let’s think about missing children now. Although the chances are low that your child will go missing, summer time is the time of year when most children go missing.

If it happens to you or your family, it is the worst thing that can ever happen.

There are things you can do to help find missing children, at least ten ways you can help. These are ways that don’t take a lot of time out of your busy schedule.

First Way to Help

If you have a cell phone, you can help. Go to the website www.wirelessamberalert.com and register to be on the list of people called when a person goes missing in your area. When a situation arises that requires your help, you will be called with a voice message about a missing child or a car that may have a missing child inside.

Second Way to Help

Another way is to save those ADVO postcards you get in the mail with faces of the missing on them. Keep them all in one designated place so you can easily find them and review them once a week. This will help your retention rate.

Did you know that 1 out of every 6 people featured on these cards is found? Seeing a photo of someone really helps us find the missing.

New Technology Brings the Third Way to Help

It is possible to really make a difference and increase the chances that the people on those postcards are found. It is easy and fun to start using this next method because it impacts your own personal life.

The method is learning how to recognize faces. I’m Dr. Donna Schwontkowski, author of Million Dollar Memory for Names & Faces, a book written so that we, the people concerned about children’s safety, can more than double our ability to recognize large numbers of faces.

It makes sense that the more faces we remember, the greater our impact on bringing the missing home.

It is funny how all of us think we can ALWAYS remember a face only seen one time. I thought the exact same thing before writing my book until I realized I was only fooling myself. There were faces I did not remember and I had to find out why.

In my pilot studies, the average person was only able to recall 4 characteristics about a face before specialized training in face recognition, but after training, their scores shot up close to 11. That is an improvement of 165%. They left saying they would never look at a face the same way again. It changed their lives.

One group of concerned parents in Thornton, CA that I taught thanked me endlessly for showing them this easy technique. It changed their life and empowered them. They said the technique would even help their social life and help them just in case they became a crime victim.

Something so simple like learning the characteristics of the face can make a huge impact on personal safety.

Will You Help Find Missing Children?

It does not take much to reach out and lend a helping hand.

Sign up for my free newsletter here and I will send you a pdf of all 10 ways you can help find missing children and show you care.

© 2006 MDM, Inc.