Practical Resources: Who Is a Stranger and What Should I Do? is practical guide for children to avoid abduction. The Safe Child Book : A Commonsense Approach to Protecting Children and Teaching Children to Protect Themselves offers positive, concrete safety techniques that parents can use and teach to children, a guide to personal safety presents anxiety-free tips that cover everything from code words to communication games.

As the nation observes National Missing Children's Day this Thursday, survey results released today by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and ADVO, Inc. show parents lack information that is often critical to recovering children when abductions occur. Moreover, many parents are missing opportunities to help prevent abductions.

According to law enforcement officials, information such as height, weight, eye color and a recent photograph are critically important when searching for a missing child. However, the NCMEC/ADVO survey shows that 22 percent of parents do not know the height, weight and eye color for all of their children. For households with two or more children, 29 percent do not have all of their children's height, weight and eye color information readily available. Moreover, while 90 percent of parents can readily provide height, weight and eye color information for their teenage children, approximately one out of four parents cannot readily provide the same information for all of their children aged six and under.

"In the event of an emergency, it is critical for parents to have readily available their child's accurate physical description and a recent photograph so that law enforcement can act immediately and effectively," said John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, and noted child safety advocate. "Encouragingly, 95 percent of parents surveyed have a clear picture, no more than six months old, of each child in their household. Plus, 93 percent of parents know their children's weight within five pounds, while 82 percent of parents know all of their children's height within one inch."

Walsh emphasized that parents should make sure they have a portrait, ID- like photo of their children, not a low-quality snapshot.

Preventing Abductions

In terms of prevention, NCMEC recommends the single most important measure parents can take is to talk to children about safety issues. Nearly one out of every ten parents surveyed has never discussed safety precautions with their children for activities outside the home. Fourteen percent of parents have not discussed safety precautions with their children within the past six months. Moreover, 22 percent of parents have not established a plan of action with their children if someone tries to abduct them, while 20 percent of parents have never explained that abductors can be people that their children already know.

At the same time, 74 percent of parents whose children use the Internet are very concerned (46 percent) or somewhat concerned (28 percent) about their child's safety online. Yet despite the growth of online criminal activity targeting children, 24 percent of parents whose children use the Internet say they are not concerned about their child's safety online.

Thirty-seven percent of parents do not monitor their child's use of chat rooms, while 22 percent of parents surveyed do not know their children's Internet codes or passwords. Forty-seven percent of parents do not use Web site blocking software.

"Child predators often use the Internet to target unsuspecting children," said Ernie Allen, President of NCMEC. "In fact, we have received over 5,500 online enticement reports to our CyberTipline since March 1998. National Missing Children's Day marks a critical time for all parents to become better educated about the measures they can take to protect their children from abduction and to arm themselves with all of their children's identification information."

Picture Programs Work

When children are abducted, picture programs play a vital role in their recovery. The success of picture programs in helping to locate missing children is exemplified by the success of ADVO's America's Looking for Its Missing Children(R) program, launched in partnership with NCMEC and the United States Postal Service in 1985. ADVO coordinates with NCMEC to distribute pictures of missing children, along with descriptive information such as height, weight, hair and eye color, to up to 85 million homes per week on its Have You Seen Me?(R) direct mail cards. As a result, 116 children featured on the nationwide distribution of the cards have been safely recovered from across the country and overseas. Most recently, Berenger and Emilie Grecula, ages 11 and 4 respectively, were recovered this March in Malta, an island south of Italy, and reunited with their mother. An anonymous lead generated from an ADVO card directed law enforcement to the exact location of the children and their abductor.

"This survey identifies a number of simple, yet essential precautions parents can take to better protect their children," said ADVO's Senior Vice President of Government Relations Vince Giuliano, who has been directly involved with ADVO's missing child program for 17 years. "Interestingly enough, the percentage of parents interviewed who described themselves at the beginning of the survey as very prepared in the event of an abduction (69 percent), dropped to 56 percent after the interview. Parents we spoke with who discovered they were less prepared than they thought, later said they would take steps to obtain the necessary information."

The survey was conducted from March 18 to April 3, 2002, by Woelfel Research, Inc. and has a margin of error of +/- four percent. Respondents were screened to ensure they were the parent most likely to have information on their children to help describe or identify them to authorities. Of the 602 respondents, 231 had one child and 371 had two or more children living at home.