Organisations

Official Bodies

The UK Missing Persons Unit is part of the National Crime Agency and coordinates with national and international policing organisations and charities.

The Police respond to, and are responsible for, reports of missing persons.  If a person is reported missing, the police force who receive the initial report is responsible for taking details and recording the person as missing.  That force will carry out the initial investigation and searches as are required to find the person or verify that they are safe and well.  However, if the majority of enquiries to locate the missing person need to be conducted in another force, responsibility for leading the investigation will normally be transferred to that other force. Other circumstances may dictate that this is not always the case.

The International Child Abduction and Contact Unit is a government organisation and part of the Official Solicitors Office responsible for the return of a child taken abroad from England and Wales against your wishes, to make contact with them or to enforce a court order overseas.

If your child normally lives in:

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) can help if a relative or friend goes missing abroad, this Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) guide will tell you what you can do and who to contact.

International Organisations

LBT Global (formerly known as The Lucie Blackman Trust) provides families with information, liaison, advice and support throughout a missing person’s case overseas

The ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) operates worldwide, helping people affected by conflict and armed violence and promoting the laws that protect victims of war.

ICMP (International Commission on Missing Persons) works on the issue of people who have gone missing as a result of armed conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organized crime, irregular migration and other causes.

116000 Hotline for missing children and is a vital service to respond to children (at risk of) going missing in Europe. It is a European universal number reserved since 2007 by the European Union and regulated under EU law.

Missing Persons Advocacy Network (MPAN) whose vision is for every Australian impacted by missingness to have access to the support they need.

Center for Advanced Research in Emergency Response – CARER is a collaboration between Linköping University (LiU) and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency which aims to consolidate and strengthen LiU’s research in risk, response and rescue area.

CARER activities are primarily directed towards research and training to deal with society’s response capacity in case of accidents, which includes everything from everyday accidents to the extraordinary events on local, national and global levels. It also an opportunity to combine and complement the traditional response resources, such as rescue and ambulance services, with other community resources including the individual.

Missing Children Kenya Foundation is a not for profit community led initiative that uses technology and crowd sourcing for the search, trace and reunification of missing, displaced, lost & found children.  They operate the only toll free help line in Kenya 0800 22 33 44 dedicated to respond to the emergency needs of missing, lost and found/ displaced children but also provide links to support services at no cost.

Since inception in July 2016, Missing Child Kenya has found and reunited with family 1052 children, committed 151 children to government homes for safe care and custody, documented 28 as deceased and is still searching for another 294, making that a total of 1548 children in the case files. A champion of open data, anyone can search through the online image poster database by simply using #MissingChildKE

The UK Missing Persons Unit has a list of missing person organisations in other countries.

Charities and Not For Profit Organisations

Missing People provides help if you’re currently a missing person or you are trying to find someone who is reported missing.

Locate International offers a free and independent review and investigation service for the families of missing persons in relation to cases that are more than 12 months old. 

Safe and Found Online is a digital information bank committed to safeguarding vulnerable people. Police in the UK have been promoting the use of protocols that record information about people who are at risk of going missing to improve the response if they do go missing.

Safe and Found Online have developed an on online version of the form for those living with Dementia (Herbert Protocol) and another for service veterans, reservists and currently serving members of the armed forces who are at risk of going missing (Forcer Protocol).

Information on how to access and complete these protocols can be found on the Safe and Found Online website.

Railway Children provides protection and opportunity for children with nowhere else to go and nobody to turn to in the UK, India, and East Africa. 

NWG is formed as a UK network of over 14,500 practitioners who disseminate our information down through their services, to professionals working on the issue of child exploitation (CE) and trafficking within the UK.

The Children’s Society is dedicated to protecting the hopes of children threatened by abuse, exploitation and neglect.

Reunite International Child Abduction Centre are the leading UK charity specialising in the movement of children across international borders.

AMBER Alert Europe is based in The Netherlands and works with countries across the European Union (EU) to support their AMBER Alert systems, provide training, and administer the Police Expert Network – Missing Persons (PEN-MP), which links all police experts in missing persons across the EU. Some organisations outside of the EU have observer status, which includes the UK.

Missing Children Europe (MCE) is based in Brussels and strives to protect and empower children to prevent them from going missing, and to keep them from harm when they do go missing.

Safeguarding Hub. The safeguarding platform for professionals. A FREE Dedicated Safeguarding Platform for Learning, Sharing & Collaborating.

Alzheimer’s Society provides support for anyone affected by dementia in the UK, including carers, partners, families and friends.

SPACE Stop & Prevent Adolescent Child Exploitation is a self-funded organisation founded in January 2018, in response to the national prevalence of Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE) and the County Lines phenomenon which has entrenched thousands of children and young people into serious violence, organised crime and extremism.

Search and Rescue Organisations

The police have specialist search services that can be used to find missing persons. There also are many voluntary organisations that provide search and rescue services that support and work under the direction of the police. It is a police decision as to whether any of the services are to be used. The main coordinating bodies for search and rescue as listed below and each comprises many locally based voluntary organisations.

Lowland Rescue is the UK’s governing body for search and rescue in lowland areas. Search resources are managed by local teams based throughout the UK, the details of which can be found on the Lowland Rescue website.

Mountain Rescue England and Wales was primarily founded to find lost persons in mountainous areas but will also search for missing persons. Their resources includes searchers on foot, mountain bike and other means of transport, dogs and can all in aerial support and recovery in the form of helicopters.

Note – A lost person is usually someone who has gone walking and become lost and sometimes injured or in danger and need to be rescued. A missing person who may not be lost but is not where it is thought they should be for a variety of other reasons.

Mountain Rescue Scotland covers Scotland and information about rescue services in Northern Ireland can be found here.

Coastguard Search and Rescue respond to incidents along Britains coastline and work with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

The Royal National Lifeboat Association (RNLI) is a charity and carries out search and rescue activity on the sea and some inland waters.

Technology Organisations

SOLV

Through the innovative use of internet advertising, SOLV enables police and NGOs to broadcast appeals for information to any device in a specific postcode, reaching thousands of people in a short time.