The people you turn to when a loved one goes missing

The people you turn to when a loved one goes missing

ABC Life Matters, 6 August 2026

Our founder Loren O’Keeffe joined Professor Sarah Wayland on ABC Radio National’s Life Matters to discuss the profound realities of ambiguous loss and what it truly means to navigate a state of not knowing. If tomorrow a loved one disappeared from your life and went missing, who would you turn to? Every year, 50,000 people go missing in Australia, leaving families and friends in limbo.

During the conversation, Sarah and Loren explored:

A Public Health Crisis: Stepping away from oversimplified police narratives to treat missing persons as a community and health issue. With thousands of Australians living with ambiguous loss, there is currently a lack of investment in prevention strategies. It is not entertainment, there are vulnerable people behind every story and families left behind, we owe it to this population to do better.

Validating the Loss: The vital need for stories to be recognised, for losses to be validated, and to move away from harmful platitudes telling families to “move on.”

Redefining Outcomes: Moving away from purely outcomes-focused metrics toward safety, validation, and being truly seen. Sarah also highlighted her new book, Living In the Liminal Space.

The Media Maze: Navigating the storm of media engagement while protecting the missing person’s privacy. Families often seek public exposure to find their loved one, but instead face public interrogation, speculation, and media narratives that strip away the person’s humanity rather than help find them.