Missing Persons Co-ordinator

When you join the police, you need to complete a two or three year probationary period as a police constable. This gives you the skills and experience you need to progress in your career. After that, you can move into a wide variety of exciting roles, such as a Missing Persons Co-ordinator.

Every 90 seconds, someone in the UK is reported missing and it can be a family's worst nightmare. With a problem of this scale and complexity, the role of a Missing Persons Co-ordinator is vital in ensuring that forces respond effectively to the challenges of dealing with missing people. Those working in this role provide timely information, advice and assistance to the operational police officers and partner agencies trying to find missing people, as well as identifying safeguarding opportunities for vulnerable people.   

To be a successful Missing Persons Co-ordinator, you need be a logical thinker who understands how to communicate with different audiences. You’ll also need to be a highly motivated and highly organised team player with a keen eye for detail.

Here’s a bit more about what being a Missing Persons Coordinator involves: 

• You’ll share information at operational meetings, including professional and strategy meetings with partner agencies.
• You’ll review open reports of missing persons to identify actions and a robust investigation plan to locate the missing person as quickly as possible.
• You’ll identify and evaluate repeat missing person reports, working with partner agencies to identify interventions that would reduce the frequency of that person being reported missing.
• You’ll review all return interview notes to identify new information or intelligence and any disclosures made. 
• You’ll deal with outstanding historic missing persons reports to identify any new information or intelligence that may assist with lines of enquiry that ultimately help find the missing person. 
• You'll build strong relationships with care providers to develop and maintain an up-to-date picture of people placed within the care setting, share intelligence and support them to develop effective safeguarding strategies for vulnerable people.
• You’ll work within all legal frameworks, key working principles, policies and guidance to ensure information and intelligence is handled and processed legally. 
• You’ll stay in the loop and up to date with missing persons innovation, providing expert advice to colleagues and partners, and implementing the latest techniques and tactics to help find and reunite people with their loved ones.

This is just one way your police career could take you after successfully completing your probation. Find out more about career progression.