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Launched on Mother’s Day, 30 March , The Mirror's Missed campaign calls for better support and care for the 170,000 people who go missing every year in the UK - including 75,000 children - and for their families. Our aim - in conjunction with national charity Missing People - has been to help raise awareness and to bring at least one person home, or to safety, in 2025, by covering these heartbreaking stories. In May we achieved this when we wrote about 17-year-old Deante James, who went missing from his London home and was found safe a few weeks after our story was published. His mum Vandana thanked the Mirror , saying: "When I got the call from the police to say he'd been found I was over the moon - I couldn't stop crying. Thanks so much for everything the Mirror has done.” To vote go to https://newsmediauk.org/making-a-difference-vote-2025/ click on the link and then on the National Media button on the page. Then simply follow the instructions to vote for The Mirror’s Missed campaign. Since we launched our campaign we've highlighted hundreds of cases of missing people. On Mother's Day, four mums told us their moving stories. Julie Davis, Christine Durand, Nerissa Tivy and Sharon Lee spoke to us in the hope our campaign might help find their missing children after years of looking. Fast forward to Father's Day in June and grieving children told us how all they wanted to do was hug their missing dads on Fathers Day. Five-year-old Dottie, April, eight, Chanel, 18, Dougie, 21, and Tessa, who is 41, all spoke out to support the Mirror's Missed campaign and tell their dads to come home. The Mirror has also created a live interactive map enabling you to report a sighting of a missing person in confidence and share it easily on social media. Simply zoom into your chosen area to see how many people have gone missing in that location. And you can zoom in further to reveal photos of missing persons plus the names, ages and length of time they’ve been missing. Now our campaign has been shortlisted for the 2025 Making a Difference Award, run by the News Media Association, as part of Journalism Matters Week. This is the news media industry’s annual campaign, highlighting the benefits journalism creates for our society. With someone going missing every 90 seconds in the UK, our campaign is of fundamental importance - as we ask the government to publish a new missing children and adults strategy to ensure police, health and social care play their part. We are asking for investment in prevention for those at most risk of going missing and for support for every missing child and adult on their return. And we need you, our loyal readers, to make a difference, too, by voting for our Missed campaign before 5pm on Thursday (Nov 6). In case you missed the link to vote, here it is again - go to https://newsmediauk.org/making-a-difference-vote-2025/ click on the link and then on the National Media button on the page. Then simply follow the instructions to vote for The Mirror’s Missed campaign.
