Nineteen years ago when Judy Peterson’s daughter went missing she was armed with posters, tape and hope police would find her child.
Monday, she was in Calgary at the launch of a partnership between Calgary police and the Missing Children Society of Canada kicking off a national program to recruit corporations to help find youth who vanish.
“When Lindsey vanished nearly two decades ago, I went all over town on my own with posters and a roll of Scotch tape,” Peterson said.
“I believe that if this type of technology existed, we may have been able to find her or have answers.”
To date, the mother, whose then 14-year-old daughter, Lindsey Nicholls vanished from Courtenay, B.C., has neither.
“I feel like if it may be too late for us, but I hope CodeSearch will help other families,” she said.
Apache, WestJet, Tervita and Enmax are signed up— poised to quickly mobilize staff with an alert on mobile phones from police about a missing child in their area.
Petroleum Services Association of Canada is also on board with CodeSearch which recruits help coast-to-coast to be on the look-out or search for missing youngsters.
Police chief Rick Hanson, said while Amber Alerts are a good tool it comes with strict criteria — including a belief a child has been abducted or at risk of serious harm or death and must come with information on an associated vehicle.
CodeSearch only requires that a child be missing to mobilize partners.
“I can tell you, there is nothing more terrifying than for a family to realize their child is missing, no matter what we do it can never be enough,” Hanson said.
“The more eyes and ears on the look-out, the greater the chances we can quickly locate a missing child.”
Missing Children’s executive director, Amanda Pick, said the initiative will be rolled out nationwide.
Last year, 45,000 children were reported missing in Canada.
In Calgary, there were 3,840 missing person reports — of those, 2,391 were aged 12 to 17 and 193 under age 12
The bulk came home safe.
The www.valuablenetwork.ca site is a way citizens can help find missing kid, those signed up getting automatic postings to Facebook or Twitter accounts when one goes missing in their area.
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