Police agencies from across the region are learning about a relatively new system to find missing children. It's called, A Child Missing. The national program is designed to help authorities find missing children, college students or adults, who suffer from illness or mental disorders.

The Florida-based non-profit group provides training to coordinate the effort using the phone. On Friday, personnel from several agencies in the Quad City region gathered in Silvis to learn more on how to use the system.

"With our limited resources to do it locally, we reached to a company that can provide an automated system to make phones quickly flood geographical areas where this person might be missing, to help us to locate these people as quickly as possible," according to Silvis Police Chief Bill Brasche.

The system helped Colona Police locate a missing child back in May of 2008. The four-year-old boy walked out of his home and disappeared. After a brief search, the Henry County dispatcher notified A Child Missing. Almost 400 homes and businesses in the immediate neighborhood were called. One person who received a call noticed a child crying outside and the boy was soon returned to his family.

The system can make 1,000 phone calls in one minute. A Child Missing has been credited with more than 580 recoveries.

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