Raising awareness of the unidentified bodies database

Each year, 186,000 people are reported missing in the UK. We speak with Josie Allan, Policy & Campaigns Manager at Missing People, a charity dedicated to helping reunite missing children and adults with their families. Josie tells us about an online database, which is run by the National Crime Agency’s UK’s Missing Persons Unit, and explains why it’s beneficial to raise awareness amongst the social work community.

At the crux of our services is our free, confidential helpline which operates 24/7. It’s run by trained volunteers and staff to offer specialist support for people who have gone missing and the families dealing with the trauma of coping with the disappearance of a loved one.

We provide emotional support as well as practical and financial guidance when a loved one has gone missing. We can also offer families of long-term missing people free telephone counselling.

We also work hard to publicise appeals to help find missing people across different forms of media, typically using posters, social media, and our website. Soon we will begin hosting appeals on digital advertising boards around the country. As part of this work, we provide support to families who are taking part in media interviews. We know that they are motivated to do what they can to keep the search in the public eye so we help them cope with the pressures that media attention can bring.

As soon as you suspect that a person has gone missing, you should report it to the police who will lead the investigation.

As a charity, we become involved if the police believe that the missing person could benefit from publicity or if their family could require additional support from us.

Consultations with returned missing people have shown that people want the space to talk about why they went missing, what is happening in their lives, and what happened while they were away.

Everyone’s needs will vary and any intervention upon return from missing should be voluntary, however, it is vital that the option for support is there for everyone. Missing is often a warning sign of wider problems in someone’s life; any social workers who are in contact with someone who has been missing should consider what might be going on. They should provide meaningful opportunities for the returned person to speak about what has happened, and support that person in accessing any further services that they might need.

Agencies should have clear procedures for engaging people who have returned from missing, and effective pathways for referring people who are identified as vulnerable or in need of support.

RHIs should be used as an opportunity for early identification of risks to address a range of different harms associated with missing. RHIs are a vital tool as missing may often be the first warning sign that a child may need additional support. They are one of the very few professional safeguarding interventions which are not reliant on the child meeting specific, often high, thresholds for a particular ‘type’ of risk.

When the risk is identified or the child discloses that they have been the victim of harm, it is important that RHIs are followed by the opportunity for further support. RHIs may aid the identification of risk, but a one-off conversation is not enough to be considered as effective support for children who have experienced trauma, have complex needs or are at ongoing risk.

Finally, the information disclosed by young people during RHIs should be effectively shared, recorded and included in safety planning, in line with the child’s consent. Valuable information can be gathered during an RHI, sometimes including disclosures which have previously gone unheard. This information can be crucial to the future safeguarding of that child and potentially other children, for example, those at risk from the same perpetrators of exploitation.

Information disclosed during an RHI should be shared with relevant agencies, including the police, children’s services, residential placements, and other agencies when appropriate.

This database is run by the National Crime Agency’s UK’s Missing Persons Unit, but as a charity, we are committed to raising awareness about it. Families of missing people have told us that getting closure can help people dealing with the trauma of having a loved one missing.

We regularly talk about the concept of 'ambiguous loss'. Pauline Boss described it as “the most distressful of all losses”. In relation to missing people, because the loss is never ‘verified’, the natural human need for meaning, sense, security, knowledge, finality, and rituals are denied to the family. The ambiguity of not knowing where someone is can prevent the grief process, often preventing one’s ability to effectively process the situation emotionally, cope or make decisions.

We believe that social workers and other healthcare professionals can help in this process by signposting people to the database which can be accessed via our website. We want to be used as an additional resource for social workers because our trained team can provide practical and emotional support – specifically using our Missing People’s helpline.

Additionally, there is evidence that people who go missing may become homeless. On the database, there are identifying features of people who have been found dead but not identified, and they could enable their family or a professional who has worked with them to be able to identify them. This can be emotionally upsetting so we would always advise caution and that people seek support if they are looking for a missing loved one, but it can enable them to gain closure and prevent the trauma relating to the ambiguous loss.

To discover more about Missing People please visit missingpeople.org.uk, to view the missing person’s database please visit missingpersons.police.uk. Alternatively, please email PolicyandResearch@missingpeople.org.uk.

Thanks to the support of players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Missing People is able to keep its free confidential helpline open 24/7. To access the helpline, call 116 000 or email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk