About Us

Child Watch of North America is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the prevention and recovery of missing, abused, and exploited children. Child Watch has always believed that education is an essential element in keeping our children safe. Providing awareness and safety education to children, teens, pre-teens, and parents is the foundation for our goal to prevent abductions and victimization.

Since our inception in 1993, Child Watch Investigators have assisted in the recovery of over 256 missing children. We work with local and national law enforcement agencies and have been recognized as a critical resource in the recovery effort. When a child first goes missing, the police, the media and the community all rally together to help the devastated family search for their child. As time goes by, that involvement gradually decreases, leaving the family to continue the search…seemingly alone. Child Watch recognized the need to help these families and added investigations in 1994. Since that time, our unique and comprehensive search programs have assisted police and searching families in the active and ongoing search for missing children.

Child Watch is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that does not receive government support of any kind. We depend on funding from the generosity of individual and corporate donations, fund-raising events, promotions, and in-kind support of services and products. All donations made to Child Watch are fully tax-deductible, as applicable by law.

Parents & Educators

There are some topics that we wish we never had to discuss with our children, abduction being one of them. Of course, we can choose to ignore the issue and simply hope it never happens. Another approach is to never let our children out of our sight. No one can advocate either of these strategies.

Most parents are eager to learn a simple and effective way to help protect their children from “Scoopers.” When I was a child my parents told me not to take candy from strangers or get in a car with someone I didn’t know. They had limited knowledge of the issue, as did many other people. I can’t ever remember hearing about a missing child as I was growing up. Today, the media have brought the issue to the public, for better, and for worse.

Parents constantly ask me, what do I need to do? Today, we need to empower our children with skills that will build their self-confidence in dealing with dangerous situations. We have to be careful not to tell our children that the world is full of scary people. Unfortunately, the news media does that for us. Rather, children need to know that most adults they encounter in their lives are basically good people. Parents and educators need to make child safety part of their everyday life by practicing and reviewing basic safety skills.

This book is an excellent way to start the dialogue and to open up our children’s minds to the issue of luring prevention. Author Julia Cook has presented this subject in a manner that children will relate to. This book should be used as a tool to teach, renew, and practice the skills children need to know to keep them safe. The child is usually the last line of defense against the Scooper!

Thanks, Julia for working with us to help keep our children safe!

Don Wood, Founder of Child Watch of North America