Today, May 25, 2019, is Missing Children’s Day. Every year, thousands of children are reported missing. Thankfully, the majority of these children are safely located, but unfortunately, some cases remain open for years with these children never found.
It is through the many partnerships the Winnipeg Police Service Missing Persons Unit has formed, that we are able to achieve success in our role of dealing with the complexities surrounding missing children cases. These include partnerships within our service such as Ground Search and Rescue and AIR1, numerous other law enforcement agencies within Manitoba, across Canada and abroad. It includes various other agencies such as the entire Media community, The Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Street Reach Winnipeg and Child and Family Service. We would also like to acknowledge the Winnipeg OutReach Network (WON) which encompasses multiple outreach organizations and shelters who work tirelessly daily to help provide for those most at need in our city.
We greatly appreciate and extend our gratitude to all of our partners for the role they play in helping us to achieve success and keep children safe. We also appreciate the vital role the public has played and continues to play in helping us locate missing children and ensure their safety.
The Winnipeg Police Service continues to encourage families and guardians always to keep a watchful eye on children in their care, know who their friends are, where they live, and what social media they are using. It is also important to have recent photographs readily available of your children in the event they suddenly go missing.
Through education and partnership, we hope to bring all Missing Children home safely.
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s caseworkers are available 24/7 to support families when their child goes missing, or they fear their child may go missing. For more information or to report a tip, visit missingkids.ca or call 1-866-KID-TIPS (543-8477).