‘An identified gap’: New partnership brings crisis intervention to Durham missing persons unit

Tue, Nov 12, 2024 5:00 PM GMT

Under a new partnership between Victim Services Durham Region (VSDR) and Durham Regional Police Service’s (DRPS) missing person’s unit, missing persons now have access to ongoing supports and more upon their safe return, which has significantly impacted recidivism in the unit.

 

“There’s been an identified gap,” said Paul Grigoriou, DRPS missing persons co-ordinator, of the lack of support for missing persons — a gap that widens even further for Indigenous individuals and people of colour. “Return interviews and support to families is an area that police have not been able to overcome.”

 

Return interviews, typically conducted by an officer once a missing person is located, typically capture the reasons why a person was missing, where they were and any activity that happened in the duration.

 

Grigoriou said people are often hesitant to share this information with the police for fear they may get in trouble or cause trouble for someone else, particularly if there was illegal activity involved.

 

The new Missing Persons Project circumvents that fear by allowing individuals to have their return interview with an embedded VSDR crisis counsellor instead, where all information remains strictly confidential and is only shared with police if the individual consents.

 

“Missing individuals are way more open to discuss their concerns and issues with an agency like Victim Services because they aren’t connected to the police, so they’re much more open to providing that much-needed information,” Grigoriou explained. “It’s about providing that support to the public.”

 

Krista MacNeil, VSDR executive director, said she was immediately eager to participate in the project, which was inspired by both the Missing and Missed Report, which analyzed missing persons cases in Toronto and the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG).

 

 

“If you don’t work with missing persons you’re missing a critical opportunity for great prevention and intervention work,” she explained. Both she and police representatives felt it was important the individual embedded be of Indigenous background.

 

“When we first discussed it, I asked what percentage of missing persons cases involved Indigenous women? And it was less than one per cent, which I suspected wasn’t a true picture,” MacNeil explained. “Often individuals won’t identify as Indigenous because of a lack of trust or because they don’t look Indigenous. I thought this was an opportunity for us to not only provide support to missing persons but provide support to address the issue of MMIWG, which directly aligns with the calls to action under truth and reconciliation.”

 

The program is also a crucial tool in combatting human trafficking. About 70 per cent of trafficked youth VSDR works with have been reported missing at least once. “In the first month we had disclosures from five Indigenous individuals who were being trafficked,” MacNeil said. “For me it was a no-brainer, it made sense for us to do this for a lot of different reasons.”

 

Enter Susan Byrne-Osso, crisis intervention counsellor for the Missing Persons Project, who provides support to missing persons and their families. “It starts off as a missing persons case but it turns into so much more,” she said of her work with clients.

 

The support includes connecting individuals and families to resources, working with group homes and school boards on items such as safe return to school plans and acting as a first point of contact for those hesitant to contact police.

 

“We’re really in the job of helping people help themselves,” Byrne-Osso explained. “We put enough supports in place so when they’re finished working with us they have everything they need to be successful.”

 

 

Since the project began last December, the percentage of missing persons self-reporting as Indigenous has risen from less than one to eight per cent, with a further 13 per cent identifying as persons of colour.

 

While Byrne-Osso said she “loves” the job, it’s not always easy to connect people with help when it’s not wanted. “Some people tell me right where to go and give me a map, but I hold that space for them,” she said. “They just need to know someone is going to show up consistently,”

 

Some cases can be particularly challenging, such as one client that resulted in 24 contacts during the course of a month, the highest Byrne-Osso has seen to date. “There was no instruction manual handed to me at the beginning of this, we’re doing something that’s never really been done before,” she explained.

 

“You have to have a bit of grace because not every call is going to go the way you want it to. Not everyone will get into a detox bed or get connected to safe accommodations and stay there. You do everything you can within your scope of practice to help that individual, but at the end of the day, they’re all still human and they get to make those choices themselves.”

 

The program is, to the best of the organizers’ knowledge, the first of its kind in Canada. Already it is being modelled by other services across Ontario, including Niagara and Toronto police. The impact is especially significant considering the program barely got off the ground.

 

When first approached by police, MacNeil had no resources to put toward the program. It wasn’t until two years later, a combination of grant funding and donations combined helped get the program started. The initial run, which began in December 2023, was set up as a pilot run, with funding set to expire in December. MacNeil said she is hopeful new funding will be found so the program can continue.

 

“Right now it’s a day-to-day decision because we can’t sustain it the way it is right now,” MacNeil said. She noted only 30 per cent of the organization’s funding is stable, which leaves them to rely on donations for the rest.

 

“The goal was to do a long enough pilot that we could show the impact; we could show this is worth investing in and I think we’ve done that,” MacNeil said. “It’s significantly straining us to be doing this because we just don’t have a huge donor base; so ideally if we had funding for this program we could divert those donations to other areas of need.”

 

Byrne-Osso, who has so far handled 869 missing persons files, said she would love to continue the work. “It’s exploded way beyond any of our expectations and has reduced recidivism for some kids very successfully,” she said.

 

“This is really about supporting community members where they need it and I’d love to see the funding to continue that work. I think the general public needs to be educated about what reporting a missing person looks like and the supports that are available to them. I would love every Victim Services across Canada to be able to support their missing persons unit.”

 

Grigoriou said the program has been an immense help to police and the public and he is hopeful it can be salvaged. ‘It’s been very positive, it’s just the simple fact these supports were never in place and now we have that open door and I think it’s an opportunity for things to blossom and evolve,” he said.

 

“People might say ‘well how does this help police if people aren’t telling you anything?’ While there is an opportunity for information to be relayed back to us with the individual’s consent; even if that doesn’t happen, what’s so beneficial is that these community members are now getting the much-needed supports they weren’t getting in the first place.”

 

For more information on the Missing Persons Project or to donate, visit vsdr.ca.

 

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