The vast majority of searches that the team have been involved in over the years are incidents which cannot be made public due to the vulnerable nature of the people involved, you will only hear the details of what we do if they are in the public domain.
If you are a follower of ours on social media you will notice that when we post “CALLOUT”, we share very little additional information. Sometimes we will include a link to a West Mercia Police or a missing person appeal and sometimes not.
There are numerous reasons for this and it’s not because we want to add any intrigue to what we do…
Search and Rescue teams are called out by the emergency services when someone is in dire need of specialist help.
The missing person will have been categorised as high risk by the police, that may mean dementia, suicide or self-harm intentions, someone with learning difficulties or a vulnerable child.
The potential extreme vulnerability leaves us with a duty of care to that person which extends beyond searching and bringing them to safety. We also have an obligation to offer them continued protection by not giving any information which might link their name to a medical condition, the reason we searched for them, or attract people to a scene who may be there for nefarious reasons.
It’s also an unfortunate fact that when some missing-people have come to harm, their assailants join the search for them in order to change, contaminate or divert the search.
It’s for those reasons that we have a policy not to talk about any case on our social media, even when asked.
We can talk freely about our work with floods or physical injuries, and we can share Police appeals for missing persons and share official posts that are in the public domain but the majority of our work is dealing with vulnerable individuals, and you’ll not hear us talk about those cases in detail. We can, however, also talk openly about cases where the missing person or their family have given us permission to do so, particularly when this is designed to offer safety information or serve to warn the public.
Which gives us a bit of an interesting situation. If we’re completely honest, for rescue teams, callouts equate directly to spontaneous donations (That’s why Mountain Rescue teams often post details of injured walkers). If people see we’re doing something in the community it can drive them to donate, which helps us keep going.
So being able to talk about what we’re doing is important for us – it engages our social media followers and the public – and we often see a little spike in donations when we’re mentioned in the press or by the Police.
And that’s why we try to balance the “Sorry, but we can’t talk about it…” position with one of “CALLOUT!” announcements that are very often not followed up by any more information. It can be frustrating for the public, our members and the press, and considered a bit of a tease on our behalf; but that’s the rules we work by – the vulnerable adult or child comes first, the charity second.
If you’re reading this and you’ve shared an appeal for a missing person in the past, and they’ve been found, please consider deleting your posts to help that person move on with life.
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