Hope on the darkest of days
Image: UNE's Dr Sarah Wayland (second from left), MPAN founder and CEO Loren O'Keeffe (third from right, front row), and some of the family members of missing people who workshopped the messages.
Sarah Wayland’s 2015 thesis is not locked away in a repository “for just a few academics to read”. It’s a living tool that’s helping to transform how our society thinks about life and loss.
And this National Missing Persons Week sees Sarah’s research transformed into a series of world-first therapeutic cards that she and the Missing Persons Advocacy Network (MPAN) hope will help people struggling with the complex emotions of having a long-term missing loved one.
Ambiguous loss – which occurs without a clear conclusion, delaying and complicating the grieving process – is one of the most traumatic types of grief. And with 145 Australians reported missing every day, it’s painfully common.
The Hope Narratives draw deeply on the experiences that 44 family members and friends have shared with Sarah, extending the work of her thesis. A series of 145 cards, they capture the hard truths of what it’s like to live with “the unending not-knowing”, and provide practical coping tips and messages of hope.
I hope that people using the cards find a shared connection to people who have lived through a similar experience, and realise they are not alone.”
Little could she have known 10 years ago, when Sarah started her research (supervised by Professor Myf Maple), that she would become an international missing persons expert. Or that her work would inform a range of “weird and wonderful” projects and opportunities. While she continues to work on the frontline with families and counsellors, Sarah has also been consulted for podcasts, TV shows and even a missing persons opera.
Dr Sarah Wayland with a box of The Hope Narratives cards.
Missing Persons Week is always “high-stress”.
“I am on call the entire week; you never know whether 5000 media outlets will reach out to you or none,” Sarah said. “I did my first television appearance in 2004, on the couch with then Mornings host Kerri-Anne Kennerley. I value these non-traditional academic opportunities to share my research because it makes it accessible."
It’s never been about the citation rates and grant money for me; it’s about connecting people.
In this traumatic space, family members and friends psychologically and emotionally scarred by a loved one’s disappearance often “just want to be seen”. For many years Sarah has worked closely with MPAN, which recognised early on the applications of her research.
In May, MPAN flew nine families of long-term missing persons, as well as UNE Sydney-based Sarah, to Melbourne for a three-day intensive to develop The Hope Narratives, which provide a way for people to reflect on their own journeys, prompt conversations with counsellors and discuss their loss with family.
Seeing the families meet and find comfort in new bonds … it means my research has far greater impact than a journal paper.
While National Missing Persons Week is “a great week for community awareness”, she says it’s bittersweet.
“Every year I can add something new to the conversation, about a project, paper or research collaboration I have been involved in, but every year the numbers of missing persons increases (more than 53,000 people were reported missing in Australia last year, a 30% increase on 2020), which I find depressing,” Sarah says.
“We still don’t have a prevention strategy in place. Hopefully very soon we will.”