Imagine that you are shopping at a local super store, when suddenly you realize your child is missing. Before you panic or spend a great deal of time looking for your child on your own, locate a store employee, report your child missing and ask the employee to implement the store's missing child protocol. Many establishments, nationwide, including Wal-Mart, have a child safety program, called Code Adam. Founded in 1994, Code Adam, has become one of America's largest child safety programs, and is a powerful search tool for lost and possibly abducted children in public establishments across the nation.

Code Adam was created in memory of 6-year-old Adam Walsh. Adam was the only child of John and Reve Walsh. In 1981, Adam disappeared from the toy section of a large chain store in Florida, while shopping with his mom Reve. Adam’s mother spent over two hours searching for her son by herself, before a store employee contacted the police. Two weeks after he went missing, Adam’s severed head was recovered. The exact circumstances of Adam’s disappearance and subsequent murder remain a mystery to this day.

According to the National Center for Missing and exploited children, there are six steps to be implemented when a child is reported missing. First, the employee gets a detailed description of the child. Then the employee activates a Code Adam by announcing over the store's intercom the detailed description of the child, which includes a physical description of age, height, weight, hair and eye color and clothes. Next all employees jump into action monitoring store entrances, and looking up and down every isle while calling the child's name. Law enforcement is contacted if a child has not been found in the first ten minutes of the search. If the child is found unharmed, with no reason to suspect foul play, the child is reunited with family.

In a situation where a child is found in the company of someone other than a parent or legal guardian, employees make reasonable efforts to stop the abductor from leaving with the child, without increasing the danger to the child, staff or customers. Law enforcement is called and a physical description of the abductor, including the direction in which they fled is given. A Code Adam can only be canceled after the child has been found, or law enforcement arrives and takes over the search for the missing child.

Time is the biggest factor working against finding a child who is missing. When a child is lost in a public establishment it is imperative the parent notifies an employee immediately to activate the missing child protocol. By activating a Code Adam, a parent enlists the help of all store employees in finding their child, rather than spending a great deal of time looking for the child alone, increasing the odds of finding the child safely and quickly. Statistics show that everyday more than 2,000 children are reported missing. Don’t let your child become a statistic, be prepared and know what to do if your child disappears while you are out on the town.