KID GLOVES

Kid Gloves for Handling Abducted Children was developed when ongoing program work with Take Root’s membership of former missing children brought the following to light:

• Members’ recoveries were often enacted by response professionals and/or handled by families in ways that unnecessarily added to or exacerbated the child victim’s trauma

• The overwhelming majority of Take Root members (over 90%) did not receive the kind of recovery assistance they needed, resulting in 1 in 4 later attempting suicide.

Kid Gloves for Handling Abducted Children establishes a new philosophy for recovering children from long-term abductions by shedding new light on the victim’s needs.  It is the ONLY approach to recovering children from long term abduction situations that is based 100% in the collected data, wisdom, insights and suggestions of hundreds of former missing children. 

The Kid Gloves strategies go beyond recovering missing children, to helping missing children recover.  Being “found” is only the first step on a long road to healing.  Kid Gloves helps response professionals start victims off on the right foot, by teaching child-centered  best-practice recommendations that mitigate trauma and maximize healing from the moment of first contact. The approach is rooted in awareness of the ways in which  a poorly handled recovery can create additional trauma from which the child must ultimately recover.

The Kid Gloves approach is featured in the Department of Justice publication The Crime of Family Abduction and has been presented by The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the National Amber Alert Coordinators, The National Judicial College, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and the Association of Missing & Exploited Children’s Organizations, among many others, and at conferences including Dallas Crimes Against Children and Chadwick Center Conference on Child Maltreatment.

Workshops are  available for the fields of law enforcement, mental health, law and the judiciary, case management, and child advocacy as well as for multidisciplinary groups.

To inquire about hosting a workshop, call 1 800 ROOT-ORG or provide your contact information below (it will NOT be shared).

We are working to make the Kid Gloves training materials available online to help families, professionals, friends, and communities mitigate trauma and maximize healing for victims.  Sign up to be notified when Kid Gloves training become available online:

The trauma of abduction does not disappear the day a missing child is found!