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Establish ongoing and honest communication with your children to encourage them to speak freely about their desires, problems and experiences with challenging emotions such as shame, embarrassment, anger and fear. Listen actively and respond positively to their openness, especially regarding difficult topics. Teach your child to recognize dangerous situations without arousing fear in them. If your child can view conversations with you as a space in which they feel safe and heard, they are much more like to be open when you ask them where they are going and with whom.

Intuition acts as an embodied indication that something feels unsafe. It can present in different forms, e.g. as a shiver or hair prickling along the arms or a persistent, worrying thought. Talk to children about these feelings and teach them that they are meaningful. In response, they should pause and think about their safest choices, leave a situation and ask a trusted adult for help if they are uncomfortable or feeling unsafe. Explain to them that their body is their own, that’s it’s okay to say ‘no’ and that others should respect those boundaries.

If your child gets lost, make sure that they have enough information to ask for help. Does your child know their full name? Address? Your phone number? An emergency number (112) or the hotline for missing children’s number (116 000)? For smaller children, you can write important phone numbers on their backpacks/labels/bracelets and teach them to ask an adult (preferably a policeman, security guard or a shop assistant) to call the number if they get lost.

Educating and empowering your children about online dangers is one of the biggest investments we can make as parents and guardians. It takes time and energy to protect children from potential dangers, but it is a commitment worth taking on. While the internet is a great way for children and young people to access information, play and stay in touch with their friends, it can also bring risks. Now more than ever it’s important to talk to your child about staying safe online and about the apps and sites they’re using. Looking for more tips? Visit Better Internet for Kids.

Going to a new place can be exciting and stressful for the entire family. Make sure you establish baseline rules and boundaries with your child before leaving on holiday.

This also applies to adults. Parents usually need permission from one another to move abroad with a child. Failing to obtain the necessary permission constitutes child abduction, even if you have shared parental authority. Make concrete arrangements before leaving and check if specific authorisation forms and procedures exist in your country.

Bright and colourful clothes make it easier to keep an eye on your children in crowded places or from a distance. This also means being sure to memorize what the child is wearing. If you’ll be in a crowd, do the same! Make yourself easily visible so that if your children lose sight of you, they can find you again.

When you’re out and about, agree on an easy to remember meeting spot in case you lose each other. Also issue reminders about the rules you established before the trip about where your child can go and what they should do if they get lost.

In the case that you do lose your child, check the last place you saw them, a place where you think they might go/the meeting spot. Keep an eye on your cell phone in case they (or an adult they have asked for help) call you. If you still can’t find your child, contact the 116 000 hotline for missing children for information and support.

NotFound: Thousands of children go missing every year across Europe. Thanks to the NotFound application, you can make a difference with minimal effort. Are you a website owner? Instal NotFound and a picture of a missing child will automatically get published on a ‘page not found’ of your website turning useless and dreaded 404 error pages into something worthwhile.

ChildRescue: Are you located in Belgium or Greece? You can help find missing children in your location by downloading the ChildRescue app onto your smartphone. Users can provide vital feedback relating to a missing child case when an alert is issued in their location. Missing children orgnisations interested in using the ChildRescue platform and app can contact us directly.

Help us raise funds to continue the support and coordination of the European network of 116 000 hotlines and the implementation of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM), an essential tool to guarantee quality service for all hotlines across Europe.

Each donation of 25 EUR will help us maintain a monthly CRM license for one hotline. This allows us to keep track of details and updates on missing children cases and ease cross-border cooperation between hotlines operating in different countries, to better prevent and efficiently find missing children whilst support their families.