One of the scariest things about the kidnappings of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight is how seemingly random they were. Amanda, Gina, and Michelle were just unsuspecting young girls — it could happen to anyone. So to make sure a predator like Ariel Castro can’t strike again, Dr. Rebecca Bailey – Jaycee Dugard’s therapist — gives these crucial, life-saving tips on stranger interactions and avoiding potentially harmful characters.

Rebecca Bailey: Parents Need To Be Vigilant & Communicative

“The worst thing for a parent to do is to stick your head in the sand,” Rebecca tells TIME. Parents need to be vigilant in teaching their children how to handle suspicious situations, she says. “We need to help give our kids the skills to deal with a variety of challenges,” Rebecca points out, “from situations as rare as a stranger abduction or a non-family abduction to dealing with coaches and dealing with unwanted approaches.”

Rebecca elaborates on how exactly to teach and prepare children: “Parents should start by teaching them to be aware of their environment, like helping a kid know his or her address and phone number.” The most important thing of all though, is communication.

It’s unbelievable how many kids will have experienced a scary event and not talk to their parents about it—whether they’ve been followed home by somebody as they were walking home from school or walking to the store. We live in this world where there are lots of scary images and events, and sometimes I think parents mistakenly believe kids are unaware, and they decide that if you sweep it away, it won’t affect them… Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk to your kids.

Jaycee Dugard’s Therapist: Avoiding Compromising Situations Is Key

Finally, Rebecca reveals go-to strategies young people can employ to deal with unwanted approaches:

If someone pulls over and asks for directions, it’s important that kids, whether they’re in middle school or high school, understand they don’t need to go up to the car window. They can say, “No thank you,” or “I’m busy,” or say nothing. So the whole point is to take the fear out of these topics that are not necessarily about an abduction, but also about unwanted approaches, dealing with things as explicit as sexual comments in the mall or putting yourself in a compromising position.

Being aware of the surroundings is most of the battle, Rebecca says. As for parents, the best thing they can do is be hands-on and willing to talk with their children. What do you think, HollywoodLifers?

WATCH: Amanda Berry And Daughter Return Home After 10 Years

– Andrew Gruttadaro

More Jaycee Dugard News:

1. Jaycee Dugard: Give Missing Women Time To Heal After Ohio Rescue
2. Jaycee Dugard Accuses Government of Witness Tampering In Lawsuit Against Federal Officials
3. Jaycee Dugard’s Mom Speaks Out On Her Daughter’s Kidnap and Reunion after ’18 Hellish Years’

If anyone can understand the struggles the three women rescued from captivity in Cleveland, Ohio are now facing, it’s Jaycee Dugard, who was abducted at age 11 and held captive for 18 years.

Jaycee Dugard: Amanda Berry & Missing Women Need Time To ‘Heal’

“These individuals need the opportunity to heal and connect back into the world. This isn’t who they are. It is only what happened to them,” Jaycee, 29, told PEOPLE in a statement.

She added, “The human spirit is incredibly resilient. More then ever this reaffirms we should never give up hope.”

Amanda Berry & Other Women’s Heroic Rescue

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were found on May 6, near downtown Cleveland, Ohio, after they went missing nearly 10 years ago.

Like Jaycee, who gave birth to two daughters while being held captive by Phillip and Nancy Garrido, Amanda allegedly gave birth to a child, now 6, during her time in captivity.

Authorities are currently investigating the kidnapping. They’ve arrested 52-year-old Ariel Castro, who owns the house the girls were found in, along with his two brothers.

What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers? Will these women be able to heal?

WATCH: Amanda Berry 911 Call

— Chris Rogers
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@ChrisRogers86

More Amanda Berry Kidnapping News:

1. Amanda Berry’s Chilling 911 Call After She Escaped Captivity — Listen
2. Three Girls Who Went Missing 10 Years Ago Are Found Alive
3. Ariel Castro: 5 Things To Know About Suspect In Kidnapping

Jaycee Dugard is suing federal officials for failing to keep proper tabs on her kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, who was on parole during the time she was held captive. Now, Jaycee is saying the government tampered with a key witness, who would have been vital to her case.

Phillip and his wife Nancy Garrido snatched Jaycee in 1991 when she was just 11 years old, and held her captive in his California compound where she was raped daily for 18 years before she was finally discovered.

Jaycee has a lawsuit pending against federal agents for not meeting with Phillip as often as they should have, considering he was on parole after serving only 11 years of a 50-year sentence. He also used marijuana frequently, which officials failed to report.

She is now alleging that Department of Justice tampered with her case by contacting their sole expert witness.

Her attorney, Dale Kinsella, said his legal team spent more than 50 hours over the period three months working with Carol Getty, who was planning on testifying on Jaycee’s behalf, according to the Daily Mail. Carol was the chair of the U.S. Parole Commission from 1991 to 1992.

Dale claimed that government lawyers called Carol on Aug. 1 and told her not to testify as an expert witness because she served on the parole commission during part of the time in question. Later that day, Carol backed out of the case.

Jaycee’s lawyer insists that Carol would not have a conflict of interest, and that her being contacted by government officials was just to scare her away from testifying. He also says that the Department of Justice is planning on seeking judicial order barring Jaycee’s legal team from hiring any former government employees to serve as expert witnesses, which Dale insist is impossible since there are no other experts available.

The hearing for Jaycee’s cae against the government is scheduled for Sept. 10. Phillip is currently serving his 431-year jail sentence, while his wife Nancy is serving her 36-year sentence.

What do YOU think of the alleged witness tampering HollyMoms?

– Christina Stiehl

More Jaycee Dugars news:

1. Jaycee Dugard’s Mom Speaks Out On Her Daughter’s Kidnap and Reunion after ’18 Hellish Years’
2. Jaycee Dugard New Interview: ‘I Am Angry For What They Did, For What They Took Away’
3. Jaycee Dugard Suing The US Government Over Her 18 Years Of Captivity!

At a victim’s rights event in Sonoma County, Calif., Terry, 53, recalled to a crowd of 300 the horrific details of the 1991 kidnapping of her daughter Jaycee Dugard, who was 11 years old at the time. Terry recounted the hours after her daughter went missing. “My world shattered,” she said to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Jaycee, now 32, was kidnapped by Phillip and Nancy Garrido.

The mother recalled how the authorities told her the chances of finding her daughter were “slim to none.” But even after “18 hellish years,” Terry never gave up and the family was reunited in August 2009.

“I kept Jaycee in my heart,” Terry said. “I could not and I would not let go of her.”

Phillip Garrido is serving a 431-year prison sentence for kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment. Nancy was sentenced to 36 years in jail.

– Lorraine Chow

More Jaycee news:

1. Jaycee Dugard Suing The US Government Over Her 18 Years Of Captivity!
2. Jaycee Dugard New Interview: ‘I Am Angry For What They Did, For What They Took Away’
3. Jaycee Dugard Shares Details Of First Encounter With Captor Nancy Garrido: She Was Jealous Of Me & Phillip Wanted Threesomes

As Jaycee Dugard, 31, tries to give her 17- and 14-year-old daughters the most normal lives possible, she tells ABC’s Diane Sawyer in tonight’s interview that she’s grown angrier with Philip and Nancy Garrido, who kidnapped her in 1991 when she was only 11 years old.

“I am angry for what they did, for what they took away,” reveals Jaycce, “but on the other hand, I have two beautiful daughters.”

Although the two perpetrators have not tried to contact her, Jaycee reveals she continues to stay in hiding.

“For eighteen years I had to hide…even now I feel like I have to hide,” she tells Diane. “I want my girls to have a normal life as much as possible. I feel like on some things I have to do it a little bit differently…not be recognized…for their sake.”

She continues: “I think in time as they get older they’ll know how to deal with it better and that would be the time that we would come out.”

Regardless of her traumatic past, Jaycee stresses that she hasn’t been dwelling on it and instead is focusing on her foundation and riding horses as part of her therapy.

“It’s not with me every day. That is over. Nancy and Philip are behind bars,” she says. “There is so much out here to do and feel. I feel like I can make a difference. I don’t want to be remembered for what happened.”

Catch Jaycee’s interview with Diane Sawyer tonight on ABC’s World News at 6:30pm.

More Jaycee Dugard News:

1. Jaycee Dugard Suing The US Government Over Her 18 Years Of Captivity!
2. Jaycee Dugard’s Captors Caught On Camera Abusing 20 OTHER Young Girls!
3. Jaycee Dugard Shares Details Of First Encounter With Captor Nancy Garrido: She Was Jealous Of Me & Phillip Wanted Threesomes

And the plot thickens in Jaycee Dugard’s abduction story.

Jaycee Dugard, 31, is reportedly suing the US government for an undisclosed amount.  The lawsuit claims the federal government is at fault for her serving 18 years in captivity.

Her kidnapper, Phillip Garrido, was a convicted rapist who was on parole prior to Dugard’s abduction. Garrido’s parole officers were supposed to be monitoring his California home from 1991 to 1999. Throughout this time federal officials never came across Jayvee Dugard, who gave birth to two of her kidnapper’s children. Jaycee was finally released from captivity in 2009.

Any of the awarded money will be donated to her non-profit organization– which she founded, The JAYC Foundation, Inc.

Last year, Dugard sued the state of California for $20 million.

We sure hope Jaycee gets the justice she deserves!

— Nicole Karlis

The Garridos made a string of chilling tapes showing them luring young girls into a van and forcing them to stretch and do the splits. So disturbing.

Nancy Garrido admitted to authorities that she made up to 20 videos to satisfy her husband Phillip‘s sick sexual desires, before AND after Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in 1991!

Excerpts of the tapes have been released by the El Dorado, California District Attorney, along with a 162-page report that highlights how the authorities failed Jaycee and the Garridos’ other victims by not stopping them sooner.

In one tape, dated 1993, Nancy Garrido is shown leading a young girl into a van and asking her to do the splits. She is heard encouraging the girl, saying, “That’s it. Can you go all the way down? Let me see, I bet you can go down really easy.”

The dossier of information also shows how Phillip Garrido was allowed to harass Katie Calloway-Hall, who he’d been jailed for raping in 1976, and then go on to capture Jaycee Dugard and keep her hostage in his home for EIGHTEEN years, despite repeated visits to the house by parole officers.

The Garridos were eventually caught and are now serving a combined 467 years in prison for their crimes — but District Attorney Vern Pierson is deeply ashamed of the way they were able to evade law enforcement for so long.

He writes in his report, ‘The criminal justice system failed Jaycee Lee Dugard, it failed Katie Callaway-Hall, and assuredly failed many of the other countless unknown victims of Phillip Garrido. The failure and inadequacies of the psychiatric profession were highlighted by Phillip Garrido and his manipulation of them to his advantage.”

Let’s hope this is NEVER able to happen again.

– Ian Garland

More Jaycee on HollyBaby:

1. Jaycee Dugard’s Mom Wants The Garridos DEAD, Saying: ‘Jail’s Not Enough!’
2. Jaycee Dugard Reveals Captor’s Terrifying Drug Binges: ‘He Dressed Me and Tied Me Up’
3. Jaycee Dugard Shares Details Of First Encounter With Captor Nancy Garrido: She Was Jealous Of Me & Phillip Wanted Threesomes

In her book ‘A Stolen Life,’ Jaycee opens up about the moment she met kidnapper Phillip Garrido’s wife Nancy, whose jealous fits and mental instability were no better than her husband’s sexual abuse.

“Phillip is at the door. When he comes in, he says he has someone that wants to meet me,” Jaycee Dugard describes in her new book, A Stolen Life, of the moment she first met her second captor, Nancy Garrido. Both Nancy and Phillip are to blame for destroying Jaycee’s life, keeping her as a hostage and sex slave for 18 years. But sadly, Jaycee finds comfort with Nancy, the woman whose jealousy of an 11-year-old girl feeds into her husband’s disturbing and evil mind.

“Phillip introduces her as Nancy, his wife,” Jaycee continues. “Phillip wants us to be good friends. He tells me Nancy will bring me dinner from now on.”

But dinner isn’t the only thing Nancy begins to bring Jaycee. She gifts the innocent 11-year-old with Disney and Highlights magazines, stuffed animals, cats, a Nintendo gaming system and even gives her a Birthday Barbie for her twelfth birthday.

And although this sounds better than Phillip’s sexual obsessions and “runs,” Nancy’s gifting would never cover up her intense mental instabilities.

“Phillip tells me that Nancy is just a little jealous of me but that she will come around to liking me in time if I am good and make and effort to encourage her to like me,” Jaycee writes. “…I figure she must be jealous because he is using me for sex instead of her.”

“While Phillip was talking to me about Nancy, he says she doesn’t really like sex and that I am helping her out, too. I really hate it and wish I didn’t have to. I don’t understand why I have to help her.”

Phillip tried to convince his wife to join in on the “runs” and join in on the “party” with him and Jaycee, but Nancy never wanted to. But then why did she keep Jaycee locked up for all those years if she knew what her husband was doing was wrong?

“Nancy would always bring me something new when she came to check on me, like a new book or new crayons. This made me think she was really starting to like me,” Jaycee says. “I thought she was so nice to take the time to come and see me even though she said it was hard for her.”

Jaycee admitted that she sort of liked Nancy, but “it was a relief for me to not have to endure her moods and jealousy she harbored,” when she didn’t show up for a visit.

As Jaycee concludes in her chapter on Mrs. Garrido, “She did have several opportunities to let me go, and I might never know why she chose not to.”

What are your feelings about Jaycee’s description of Nancy?

More On Jaycee Dugard Here

1. Jaycee Dugard Shares Her Heartbreaking Story & The Moment She Was Reunited With Her Mother After 18 Years In Captivity
2. Jaycee Dugard Reveals: I Was SO Lonely Imprisoned In Soundproof Shed
3. Why Jaycee Dugard Was Terrified To Meet Her Mom After Her Rescue!