Messages for missing persons have the potential to motivate receivers to pay attention, look around, conduct a search, report known information, and even help to recover the missing person. They are issued when families, friends, and co-workers have exhausted their own searches and law enforcement steps in to assist, expanding the reach of a message beyond personal networks and tapping into technologies like IPAWS and WEA to ask for help. In other words, in many cases, they are the last resort and they are vitally important to an individual's safety.
With individual lives on the line, it seems like a good idea to write messages that are complete and will be most helpful for engaging message receivers so that they can assist. Let's take a look at a few recent examples and consider how they might be improved.
In this first message, we find the name of a person and their description; where they were last seen, and information about additional vulnerabilities. We are also given a phone number and url. What's missing here? The source, the hazard/event, and the specific actions that are being asked of the message receivers.
A reader who is paying attention will intuit that this is a missing person, that the source might be some organization in Bonner County, and that there is a need for help to locate the missing person. This requires a willingness to read closely and to make some assumptions: that the person is missing, he is a danger to himself, and the message sender needs assistance from others to help recover him.
This second example shows a consistent approach out of one state that issues a lot of Silver Alerts (aka missing older adult) messages. This message includes the jargon "Silver Alert" and "on foot." There is content about a location, the name of a person, and their description. We also find a link to a web address. What's missing here? The source, the hazard/event, and the specific actions that are being asked of the message receivers.
A reader who knows about law enforcement jargon will know that Silver Alert means an older adult who is missing (maybe endangered in some way), that "on foot" means that they are traveling by walking (and probably not getting too far from where they were recently seen). A reader may also understand that these frequent messages come from their local law enforcement organization and that it is an unwritten request to assist with locating the missing person. Similar to the first message, this requires a willingness to read closely, to understand the jargon, to makes some assumptions: that the person is missing, she is a danger to herself, and the message sender needs assistance from others to help recover her.
Let's look at one more...
In this third message, we see the name of the sender, details about a person they are looking for, where they were last seen, and instructions to call if they see the person. This message is fairly complete. What I really wanted to see at the top of the message was a statement that this is a Missing Person. Upon first read through, it appears that an Agency is looking for someone but it isn't immediately clear why this is the case. By digging into additional details, the reader can see that the person is missing on the Appalachian Trail. But, the language used "currently looking for" mirrors messages issued by law enforcement when there is a suspect who is on the loose and presents a potential danger to others. By including the name of the event at the beginning of the message (Missing Person), the reader can quickly assess that this message is not about a danger to themselves, but a request to help locate someone who is IN danger.
By following the workflow and contents found in the Warning Response Model, you can ensure a complete message regardless of the type of threat.
If your organization is developing missing person messages, be sure to take a look at the resources available to help you and your organization to write effective messages in a pinch. Bookmark and download The Warning Lexicon - it's free and offers step-by-step instructions on how to write a better warning messages for 48 hazards (Missing Persons coming soon...).
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