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Smart appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss her abduction and subsequent recovery. The publication was featured during the broadcast as a resource for other young people who are coping with a similar ordeal.

The publication is one of many resources available on OJJDP's new portal Web page, Child Abduction: Resources for Victims and Families. The Web page features You're Not Alone and two other publications: What About Me? Coping With the Abduction of a Brother or Sister and When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide. When Your Child Is Missing is one of the resources most widely requested and used by families of missing and abducted children, and What About Me? helps siblings who were left behind to cope in the aftermath of the abduction.

OJJDP released You're Not Alone in May 2008 during the Department of Justice's annual Missing Children's Day ceremony. The publication is intended to help victims of child abduction begin to put their lives back together. The publication provides resources and firsthand information to help survivors cope in the aftermath of abduction and begin the healing process.

Smart was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City in June 2002 and rescued 9 months later. Her ordeal made national headlines at the time. Both Smart and the publication also were featured in the June 12, 2008, edition of People magazine.

You're Not Alone focuses on the journey from abduction to empowerment and what can be expected along the way. Smart and four other survivors—Tamara Brooks, Sam Fastow, Alicia Kozakiewicz, and Maggie Maloy—suggest how to seek out people who can help with the journey, ways to regain a sense of control and make healthy choices, and coping strategies for possible roadblocks during the process of recovery. The publication includes a personal letter from Smart and the other survivors with their thoughts to help others through their journey.

Smart talked with Winfrey about some of the coping strategies that helped her resume a normal life, including playing music, talking with her parents, and practicing her Mormon faith. She stressed a refusal to be held back by the incident and ordeal.

I would tell people to make sure that they are open with their family, open with their children. . . . To not let it hold you back, to not let it pull you down. . . . Everybody has dreams and hopes before an experience, and don't give up on your dreams and hopes after.

Speaking about the publication at the Missing Children's Day ceremony, OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores praised Smart and the other authors for their sacrifice and unselfishness in sharing their experiences with other survivors.

I look forward to the day when we no longer have to search for missing children. But until that day comes, I believe the document [You're Not Alone], and those that preceded it, will help children and families move forward on their personal journeys from abduction to empowerment.

(For more information on this year's Missing Children's Day, see the story DOJ Observes Missing Children's Day 2008 in the May/June issue of News @ a Glance.)

You're Not Alone: The Journey From Abduction to Empowerment may be viewed and downloaded at no cost. The publication may also be ordered from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service Web site. Search "NCJ 221965."

To learn more about Elizabeth Smart's interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, visit the show's Web site.