Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force releases toolkit drawn from experiences of families of missing people

SEATTLE — The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) Task Force has released a toolkit for families and friends to use if someone they know is missing.

Families and friends of missing people are often the best advocates to help find their loved one. The Task Force’s Families Subcommittee, chaired by Carolyn DeFord, Puyallup, and Maureen Rosette, Chippewa Cree, spent more than three years meeting with and listening to families of missing or murdered people. It developed the toolkit from listening sessions to give families and friends awareness, prevention, and intervention strategies. The toolkit also provides organizational tools for relatives and friends to have during the difficult and chaotic time when someone is missing. 

The toolkit is available here.

“Families, friends, and communities of those using the toolkit should know they are not alone,” said DeFord. “This toolkit does not claim to have all the answers but what it does have is the experiences of our Families Subcommittee who have poured their stories and love into it. This toolkit comes from a shared responsibility to our mothers, sisters, Two-spirit siblings, girls, boys, men, and loved ones whose lives are valuable and deserve protection and justice.”

“This toolkit is by community, for community,” said Rosette. “It is written with solidarity for our families, in remembrance of the lives lost but not forgotten, and resilience of our community.”

“Washington state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force has been model for the nation,” Attorney General Nick Brown said. “This innovative and needed toolkit ensures that families know they are not alone. They will know how to find support when they need it most.”

The toolkit outlines steps families and friends can take when someone they know goes missing, including strategies like:

• Immediately contacting a law enforcement agency in their community or where the person went missing;
• Providing as much information as possible to law enforcement, giving them the most current photograph of the person, and gathering case numbers to keep track of progress;
• Not giving into feelings of guilt or frustration by finding support through groups like talking circles, tribal programs, or outside agencies;
• Using social media or media organizations to find someone; and
• Coping strategies for managing a long-term disappearance

The Task Force will continue to update the toolkit as it receives more recommendations and information.

The toolkit also highlights the Washington State Patrol’s Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit, which can assist both families and local law enforcement agencies with a search. The unit can provide posters, publish information on its website, and help manage an investigation. More information about the unit is here: https://wsp.wa.gov/crime/alerts-missing-persons/missing-indigenous-persons/

Prior to publishing the toolkit, the Task Force helped to create the first-ever alert system for missing Indigenous people and a cold case unit that is the first such unit to focus solely on unsolved missing and murdered cases.

Members of the MMIWP Task Force and staff at the Attorney General’s Office who support the Task Force are committed to centering Indigenous voices at every step and grounding the work in Indigenous knowledge, values, and practices.  More information about the Task Force is here: https://www.atg.wa.gov/washington-state-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-people-task-force

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