Founded by survivors of child abduction in 2002, Take Root offered the first and only ongoing aftercare support program available to former abducted-children for the better part of two decades.  Along the way they developed the first and only substantive database of data collected from primary victims of child abduction, using it to inform public policy, response services, and public understanding.

The agency’s unique contribution to the field of missing child services is recognized in the book Perspectives on Missing Child Issues (Carolina University Press), in a chapter dedicated to the work of Take Root, while the agency’s founder and longtime Executive Director Melissa Haviv became a well regarded expert and sought after speaker on the victimology of long term child abduction, receiving numerous honors and accolades during her tenure at the helm.

Although no longer operating its groundbreaking peer support program, Take Root today maintains its landmark archive of rich qualitative and quantitative data and continues to  offer uniquely informed publications, consultation, and training from the singular vantage point of child abduction’s primary victim survivors.

Please pardon our construction dust as our website undergoes renovations. We’ll be back up soon!