Winston Churchill Memorial Trust

I am in a very fortunate position; in 2012 I was lucky enough to be awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship.  http://www.wcmt.org.uk/

My award was to look at the ways that Police and Search and Rescue resource work together in the USA and see if there are ways that these could be brought back to the UK and transferred to the way that “we” work with them and so under the working title of

SEARCH AND RESCUE-A better response

the  journey began.

I work as a police officer in Kent police and have a keen interest in missing persons. They are a vulnerable group, some clearly at greater risk than others, the young, old or infirm. Those  suffering with mental illness, dementia victims,  the list goes on, and on a  daily basis Police forces up and down the country will be looking for persons within these groups.

They are risk assessed on an individual basis and resource’s deployed on an individual basis and requirement….and this can be the problem.

More so now that when I originally applied for this Fellowship ,Police resources in the UK are under incredible pressure the redistribution of officer numbers and financial restraints mean that the there may not be numbers available to conduct protracted searches for missing persons.

We are fortunate, not just in my home force but nationally that there are groups of volunteers that assist police in this emotive area .Search and Rescue teams. SAR http://www.alsar.org.uk/

 

My Fellowship is to look at how they are used in the USA ,:

Can we learn from the way they are deployed?

How are they structured?

How the Police and SAR could work better together to provide a better service and more importantly than that

FIND MISSING PERSONS QUICKER