Salvos' long history of reuniting families
The Family Tracing Service's Sydney-based team of (from left) Emma Ewin, Andrew Garven, Mary Mendes, and Louise Voets. (Photo: Carolyn Hide)
The Salvation Army Family Tracing Service has been working to reunite families for almost 130 years.
It’s been an instrument of connection, reconciliation and reunion of “estranged” family members since its inception in the United Kingdom in 1885. And the service is now available through the Army's networks in more than 100 countries around the world.
In Australia alone, The Salvation Army registers 2,000 new searches each year. In the Australia Eastern Territory, the service has teams based in Sydney and Brisbane. Other teams are located in the Australia Southern Territory.
“The pain of the separation of family members just gets me to the bone. I've ached with them,” says Brisbane-based Lyndal Barker, the Australia Eastern Territorial Director for Family Tracing Services.
“When the relative is located, we are able to provide the mediation to bring about reconciliation. It becomes an experience of working through the past, whatever that was, and looking to a healthy and ongoing future for all those involved.”
In Australia, the Family Tracing Service is involved in reuniting 40 families every week. The most frequent requests are from adult ‘children’ seeking their parent(s). In Queensland and NSW, the service also conducts specific searches relating to adoption cases.
“I just love being able to share the great news with a hopeful and anxious family member that their relative has been found,” says Lyndal. “And to hear the response of , ‘I have been waiting for this day to happen for so long. Thank you, thank you so much to The Salvation Army Family Tracing Service', is just so fulfilling.
“In my 11 years in this role, for a person to be able to fulfil the experience of knowing just where they fit and belong never ceases to bring a smile to my face.”
For more information on The Salvation Army Family Tracing Service, go to salvos.org.au/familytracing
This week is National Missing Persons Week. It is an annual event to raise community awareness of the issues and impacts surrounding missing persons.
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