The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses on grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see “About TBPF”). The current partner spotlight is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children ®, the leading organization in the country that deals with the issues of missing children and the sexual exploitation of children.

NCMEC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that operates the national toll-free 24-hour national missing children’s hotline, which has handled nearly 2.5 million calls. A national network that distributes missing child photos has disseminated billions of photos. The CyberTipline, www.cybertipline.com, is the nation’s 911 for reporting suspected child exploitation cases; it has handled more than 900,000 reports. The organization has trained more than 250,000 police and prosecutors. Team Adam, comprised of retired law enforcement experts in missing child cases, helps local police personnel. The organization also provides forensic artists who create age progression photos and facial reconstructions; a Cold Case Unit that works cases others have set aside; and a Sex Offender Tracking Unit that is working to locate more than 100,000 fugitive sex offenders, and much more.

“Children are our most valuable resource,” says Pickens, an ongoing supporter of NCMEC. “Keeping children safe and protecting them from those who would prey on them is of critical importance.”

With the support of the Pickens Foundation, NCMEC opened a regional office in Austin, Texas. Case managers located in the Austin office assist state and local law enforcement in the region with difficult missing children cases. However, a key focus of the office is to educate the community about child safety through various prevention and education programs.

“With the widespread use of the Internet, online solicitation of children has become a growing and significant problem,” said Diane Allbaugh, chairman of the NCMEC Texas Regional Office. “We are grateful for the support from the T. Boone Pickens Foundation that enables us to work with parents and community leaders in Texas to help keep children safe.”

One of the public education programs the Austin office uses is NetSmartz, a highly successful, Internet safety program available free of charge from NCMEC for parents, educators, and children. NetSmartz uses interactive, educational safety resources such as activities, animated characters, games, videos, safety presentations, and websites to prepare children to be smarter online and in the real world.

Although the Internet is used for many positive activities, children also face some serious risks, such as online predators and cyberbullying. Prevention is the key to their protection. NetSmartz prepares children to behave responsibly when confronted with issues such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, predators, revealing too much information, sexting, and scams. The national spokesperson for NetSmartz is the popular animated character, Clicky, who has attracted fans nationwide.

For more information visit www.missingkids.com or www.netsmartz.org