Each year, more than 20,000 children disappear from state care. In many states, authorities fail to report or search for these children. We press for laws that ensure the system acts with urgency, using every tool available, until every missing child is found and safely returned.
News & Press
Op-Eds
Every 12 minutes, a child goes missing. One bill can make all the difference
At 13, Alicia Kozakiewicz snuck out of her house to meet a “friend” she’d met online. He wasn’t a friend. He abducted her, chained her in a basement, and tortured her. Alicia’s family, neighbors, and the FBI turned the world upside down to find her, and within days, she was pulled out of that basement alive. Anaiah Walker’s story [...]
Foster care children are easy prey for predators: They disappear without a real search
Read more here.
The Guardian: YOUTH PERSPECTIVE – This Should Never Have Happened
by Brigitte Jolliet My name is Brigitte — I’m a former foster youth from Florida and currently a third-year law student. I wrote this article in response to a memo written by Alan Abramowitz, the Executive Director of Florida’s Guardian ad Litem program. In his memo, Mr. Abramowitz responds to concerns about the state’s GAL [...]
Research & Reports
Resources & Tools
Missing Trafficked Toolkit
We are driven to ensure the safety of the tens of thousands of children who go missing from foster care every year. The Center successfully passed state legislation requiring child welfare agencies to actively and continually search for children missing from their care until they are found. Read more here.
Podcasts & Audio
Television & Video
Model Reforms
The adoption process can be slow, sometimes taking longer than a year. This largely administrative activity swallows precious time that foster children, especially older kids, don’t have to waste. Older kids are among the most difficult to place in a permanent home and face terrible odds without a family. Twenty-five percent of children who “age [...]