The national telephone counselling service provider, Kids Help Line (KHL), has joined the National Advisory Committee on Missing Persons to help address the high incidence of teenage runaways.
A KHL representative will start work with the Committee at the first of two annual conferences, to be held at the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence (ABCI), Canberra, from April 20-22.
Kids Help Line (KHL) was one of 90 agencies and almost 300 family and friends of missing people consulted by the ABCI’s National Missing Persons Unit (NMPU) last year during the preparation of an Australian first research study, ‘Missing People: Issues for the Australian Community.’
The research, conducted by Dr Monika Henderson and Mr Peter Henderson on behalf of the NMPU, found that more than half (55%) of the 30,000 people who are reported missing in Australia each year are aged under 18 and that one third of these have been reported missing before.
KHL’s Director of Counselling, Ms Julie Clark, said the research report prompted the organisation to accept the invitation from the NMPU to become involved in the Committee’s work.
"When we started going through our data with the NMPU researchers, we were surprised about the high proportion of calls we were actually receiving from families of young people who were missing and from children who had run away from home," Ms Clark explained.
"The report highlighted to us not only our duty of care in regards to these people, but also the contribution we could make in terms providing non-identifiable data and sharing our knowledge with other agencies trying to address this issue."
Ms Clark stressed that in no way would KHL’s involvement with the National Advisory Committee jeopardise the confidentiality offered to its callers.
"Our callers can remain anonymous if they wish and any information they provide our counsellors remains completely confidential," she explained. "All information we provide the Committee will be non-identifiable.
"Our main aim is to use our resources in a way that will identify significant trends and common issues among our callers. We can then work in collaboration with other Committee members to develop strategies and programs that will help young people in conflict and prevent them from running away.
"We also envisage that we will be able to offer counselling services in cases where the Committee’s other agencies feel there is a need for counselling assistance."
Coordinator of the National Missing Persons Unit, Ms Carol Kiernan, said the welcome addition of KHL to the National Advisory Committee is in keeping with several key recommendations arising from the research report.
"One of the 18 priority areas identified in the report was to train telephone counselling service providers about the issues that affect missing persons and their families," she explained.
"Becoming a member of the Committee will ensure KHL has a greater understanding of these issues and is better able to deal with callers in a missing persons situation.
"Equally as important are the expertise, knowledge and data that KHL will be able to share with the Committee’s various agencies. This meets another report priority area to identify, develop and evaluate effective, targeted prevention programs."
The National Advisory Committee on Missing Persons was established by the NMPU three years ago. It comprises representatives from the Victorian Missing Persons Committee, the Missing Persons Committee NSW Inc. (which also involves the Family and Friends of Missing Persons Group Inc.), the Australian Red Cross, the Salvation Army, International Social Services, two jurisdictional police officers and an Australian Federal Police Interpol officer.
"By drawing together the skills and knowledge of a variety of agencies working in the missing persons field, the NMPU aims to reduce the number of people who go missing and minimise the consequences when people do go missing," Ms Kiernan said.
Kids Help Line can be contacted on 1800-55-1800 and is a confidential, toll free telephone counselling service available for five-18 year olds. Anyone with information about a missing person can phone the NMPU’s new toll free number, 1800 000 634, the nearest police station or their State’s Police Missing Persons Unit.
