Bringing the missing children home

There’s quite the difference between missing children and children who run away from home, but bringing them home safe is the only outcome that remains the same.

Sheriff Loren Neilsen of the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office says there is no 24 hour waiting period for action to take place. The time is now, and the time doesn’t stop looking for the missing child until they are found.

“After the first hour of a child going missing, it’s critical. After days of a child going missing, it’s even more critical. We don’t wait, and we hope that parents won’t wait either by reporting their missing child immediately,” said Neilsen.

He says the difference between runaways and children who are missing is the fact that runaways take it upon themselves to leave the house intentionally and spend some amount of time away from home.

Children who are missing usually don’t intentionally leave the house, or usually don’t intend to be “missing.”

“Some parents report their child has gone missing, but later turn up sleeping under the bed or had made a fort in the closet while playing, slipping away from a parent’s supervision for however long. But it’s cases like these, where the parent finds the child later actually in the home, that we like to hear. Instead of the cases where children are literally gone and missing from their home.”

Neilsen says the Foundation of Missing and Exploited Children is the organization that allows hopeful discovery of missing children. He says Amber Alerts and the community’s reverse 911 messages are also a helpful way to locate missing children and hopefully bring them home safe.