The Missing Persons Team, based at force HQ, typically deal with more than a dozen missing person reports every single day. More than 90 per cent of those people are located within 24 hours, but in many other cases the public are asked for their help through social media appeals. Over the last 12 months the team has posted appeals on almost a daily basis – appeals that have helped to track down missing children at risk of exploitation, elderly people with dementia and people in danger of taking their own lives. Chief Inspector James Walker, who leads the missing person team at Nottinghamshire Police, said: “There are many reasons why people go missing from home, but in many cases they are extremely vulnerable. “Some of the people we deal with really are at the lowest and most traumatic point in their lives so our priority is to keep them safe from harm. “The Missing and Response Teams do a lot of investigative work to track people down – but sometimes we have no option but to make a public appeal. “Once we do that the reaction of the public is absolutely vital to what we are trying to achieve. By sharing our posts on their channels they are giving us thousands of additional eyes and ears. “On numerous occasions this year members of the public have helped us to safeguard children who were at immediate risk of sexual exploitation. In one of those cases a girl was found in another part of the country as a result of information provided by a member of the public who had seen one of our Facebook appeals after it was shared by the local police force. “Once we knew she was in that area we started an investigation that led to her being found and an older male being arrested. That simply would not have happened without that appeal. “We can’t feed back to people on a case by case basis but I do want everybody to know just how impactful the simple act of sharing one of our posts can be. So I would like to say a huge thank you to everybody who has responded to our public appeals this year.” The Missing Persons Team employs a mixture of serving police officers and civilian staff. It works not only to find people who have gone missing, but also works in partnership with local agencies to safeguard people who regularly go missing from home, and those at increased risk of exploitation. Over the last 12 months Nottinghamshire Police has dealt with more than 5,600 referrals from members of the public – an increase on the previous year as demand returns to pre-Covid levels. Each referral is assessed to determine the potential vulnerability of the person involved and resources are allocated accordingly.