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Awareness Raising
Educational or Information that helps raise awareness to the topic of Missing Children and surrounding issues
One year of Searching for Kayla Berg
Jul 31st
Following a move to Texas some three months earlier with her mother, Hope Sprenger, and her older brother Jimmy, Kayla Berg was thrilled to return back to Antigo, Wisconsin in August 2009. She had been in her high school gymnastics team in Wisconsin. It upset her to find that her Texas school had no gymnastics team and she also missed her friends.
Kayla’s 16th birthday was a couple of weeks ahead and she wanted to see her old friends. On August 11, 2009 she accepted a ride from her brother’s friend to the local McDonald’s, where her best friend was working. She phoned her mom early afternoon to say that she was going to her father’s place and it was agreed that they would talk later. That was the last contact Hope Sprenger had with Kayla and it will soon be one year since she went missing.
Her brother’s friend had picked Kayla up at her father’s house at about 8:30 p.m. and they arrived at McDonald’s half an hour later. Kayla ran inside, chatted briefly with her friend and then left, saying that she was going to ride around in the car for a while. At around 10 p.m. her brother’s friend says he dropped Kayla off at her boyfriend’s house in Wausau, about 14 miles from Antigo, where she got out of his vehicle and walked toward a house she said was that of her boyfriend.
Hope Sprenger and the police have spent the past 10 months retracing Kayla’s movements on the night of August 11. Questions were raised why Kayla would have requested a ride to that house which had been condemned weeks earlier and was undergoing renovations. No one else saw Kayla get out of the car but investigators were able to confirm that the 24-year old driver returned at midnight to his parents’ house in Deerbrook, about 45 minutes away.
Cadaver dogs turned up no trail and no scent of Kayla at or near the boyfriend’s home. The car she was riding in was seized and processed for evidence. Police still have the car, but investigators will not comment on the evidence collected. Her brother’s friend subsequently said that both he and Kayla had smoked marijuana before he left her and he was charged with recklessly endangering her safety.
The search for Kayla continues, help find my child are now working for Kayla’s family to help raise awareness online.
Rewards are being offered by Kayla’s family and Langlade County Crimestoppers for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for her disappearance.
ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Antigo Police Department (Wisconsin) 1-715-627-6411
or Langlande County Crimestoppers: 627-NAIL
or Marathon County Sheriff’s Department at 261-1200
Harry needs help to find his mummy
Jul 22nd
Harry will be two years old on Thursday, July 22, 2010 and his mummy has already bought his presents.. Sadly, unless a miracle happens, Kristi McDougall will not be with her son on his birthday and will not be able give him his presents herself.
Kristi, age 31, was last seen on Sunday, June 19, 2010. She dropped Harry off at his at his grandparents’ home that morning and 
was last seen by friends in Hornchurch, New South Wales, Australia at about 1p.m. that day. She said she was going to Bankstown and has not been seen since. Her car was found two days later parked in a No Stopping zone in Ermington.
Kristi is a devoted mother who lives for her son. She had already bought presents and decorations for his birthday. Her family are adamant she would never voluntarily be away from her son for an extended period of time.
Harry is now being cared for by his grandparents.but misses his mummy. When shown her photo, he points at her and and says, ‘That’s my mummy.’
For Harry’s sake, if anyone knows anything about the whereabouts of Kristi Mc Dougall,. we ask them to contact detectives at Strike Force Ashbridge via Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
We sometimes get asked to help raise awarness for missing adults like Kirsti, so on our forum we have created a little area were people can create threads to let others know about missing adults they are tryin to find. You can click here to read any new news that comes in on the search for Kristi McDougall.
Child Trafficking : Republic of Ireland declared among worst E.U. states for controls
Jul 13th
An international report issued by a child protection organisation (Ecpat) says that the Republic of Ireland was being used as a transit point for trafficking to the UK, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and the ferry crossings from the Republic to Wales being attractive gateways for traffickers
The report said that the Republic of Ireland was among the worst performing states in the EU with children as young as three years old being bought and sold.
Although no reliable figures exist for the numbers trafficked in Ireland, victims’ groups warn it is a growing problem and are particularly concerned about the number of children who go missing from Irish state care – 441 over the past 10 years.
Jillian Van Turnhout, chief executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance in Ireland said: We are finding that some children are actually trafficked into Ireland and then moved up across the border into the north of Ireland or across by ferry links to Wales into the UK.
“It concerns us that Ireland would be seen to be a weak point in a chain. We need to stand together. It is a global issue. We need, as countries, to stand together.
Campaigners have called on the Irish government to introduce clear systems to help children who have been trafficked and those at risk.
Source: BBC News
The Missing Boy by Rachel Billington
Jun 12th
I am not in the habit of reviewing books I have not read, but in the case of The Missing Boy by Rachel Billington am prepared to make an exception. Firstly, because I am not sure that I would cope with its emotional impact and secondly because I hope it will help to raise awareness of the sheer scale of the problem of missing children.
The Missing Boy
The Missing Boy is a novel about a 13 year old boy, Dan, who goes missing quite inexplicably. It describes both his internal and external experiences and the impact upon his family. On the surface, this bears much similarity with my son Andrew’s case: after over 2 ½ years, we can only continue to guess what made him leave our family all that time ago when he had just turned 14.
I will not give away any further details of the plot of this book, more can be found on the author’s website http://www.rachelbillington.com/ and a review from the Daily Telegraph may be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b…on-review.html The novel can be purchased from Telegraph books via a link on this page.
I am pleased to note that the Telegraph review talks of a “modern preoccupation” with the issue of missing kids. This indicates perhaps that the scale of the problem – 100,000 kids a year in the UK – is finally being noticed. The reviewer makes comment about the “improbability” of the police response, but sadly, this is not as improbable as one may like to think. Rachel’s novel is exceptionally welcome in continuing to raise awareness of this enormous problem in our society and its impact upon families.
The official launch of the novel is on the 10th June 2010 and Rachel has very kindly said she will speak about our son at this event. We are enormously grateful to her for her concern and willingness to help in this way.
Kevin Gosden
Andrew Gosden
Scottish Parents to learn of sex offenders
Feb 28th
Today I read the news that Scottish parents are to be given the right to learn whether people who have access to their children are convicted sex offenders. With 3,100 registered sex offenders were known to be living in Scotland in 2008 this is welcomed news. The news of a country wide roll out comes after a successful 6 month trial in the Tayside area, where the parent of any child under the age of 18 was able to register an interest in any individual who has unsupervised access to their child.
“Scotland is one of the leading countries in the world in terms of its approach to the management of sex offenders and we will continue to strengthen this approach.
“We have made progress in recent years to toughen up safeguards in place – such as strengthening measures to assess, manage and minimise the risks posed by sex offenders – but I am determined to go even further.”
I fully expect the roll-out process to begin later this year and for all of Scotland to be covered in a matter of months thereafter 
Kenny MacAskill
Justice secretary
There is still much work in this area to be done to further reduce the risk to our children from sex offenders but this is progress in the right direction.
