We are thrilled to announce the publication of our Impact Report 2020-21!
Like for many charities, 2020-21 proved to be the most challenging year yet.
The arrival of the pandemic in March 2020 put the whole world at a standstill. This continued into 2021 with the UK entering multiple lockdowns to control the spread of Covid-19. As a result, fundraising was forced to adapt, events were taken online, and organisations had to develop a new way of remote working.
And our team was no different. Our new Impact Report explores how we adapted to the changing times. This included moving towards a more digital approach starting with the launch of our new website. Support, advice, and information are now more easily available to people affected by missing across the UK via our Get Help pages.
In addition, we also saw a rise in the number of people going missing who are considered to be high-risk. This indicated that our services are needed more than ever before. With the future still uncertain, we had to make some difficult decisions to ensure we continued to be there for people in crisis throughout the pandemic and beyond.
However, despite these unprecedented challenges, we supported an incredible 8,603 children, adults, and families in 2020-21!
Our team, including our dedicated Helpline staff, all moved to remote working. Stella Harding, mother of missing Owen Harding, highlights the importance of our support services in the introduction. Stella has attended our Family Social Group since it launched in lockdown and says it has been a huge help to her and others:
“We’re all very grateful to Missing People for bringing us altogether and supporting us. I now definitely count these people as my very good friends, and I am in total admiration of their strength and resilience, in what has been really tough times. Even though it’s been hard to meet in real life, we know we get to see each other’s faces on a screen, and I really look forward to the meetings. Thank you, Missing People.”
Find out more about the challenges we faced in 2020-21 and how we adapted.
Take me to the reportWe have launched a regular email so that you can be aware of new missing person appeals and share them far and wide! We are also calling on all Heroes to be the eyes and ears for Missing People on the ground. Your sighting of a missing person could make a difference in a crucial time.