child safe zones

If your child goes missing while you’re out shopping, it will take just minutes for a unique search and find team to move into action.

Grays Shopping Centre is the first centre in Britain to sign up to Child Safe Zones, which has been set up to reunite parents with their lost children. The aim is to take a lot of the panic out of such a situation and also to prevent a child coming to any harm.

All you have to do if you’re shopping at Grays Shopping Centre, is register your details – it costs £10 per year no matter how many children you have – and a photograph and details of your child are stored on a secure website. You will be issued with a unique identity number, which is displayed on a plastic tag which may be worn by the child along with a contact number. If your child gets lost you will be able to provide security guards with a description and image of them, which will be flashed by mobile phone picture messaging to the entire security team enabling a Centre-wide search to start within minutes.

“It is very rare for a child to be abducted, but centres like Grays regularly have incidences of children being separated from their parents.” says director of the scheme, Richard Manville. “This should ease and speed them getting back together. I am hopeful that dozens of other centres will follow Grays’ lead.”

For more information or to register for the scheme, please visit:
www.childsafezones.co.uk