For more than a decade, Cathy Wood has lived with a question she still can't answer: "What happened to Dad?"
"He'd gone out sailing and he just hadn't returned," she said.
"He'd sent me and my brother emails, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would make you think anything different."
An experienced sailor, Richard Wood had temporarily moved from Canberra to Brisbane for work when he disappeared.
"We spent a lot of the day waiting for phone calls from the police to give us an update."
A senior Commonwealth Treasury official from the 1990s until 2001, Mr Wood represented Australia at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and was promoted to assistant secretary of the department's special projects unit in mid-1997.
"He worked incredibly hard, always late at night, long days at the office, and very dedicated to his work," Ms Wood remembered.
Richard Wood was an experienced sailor who temporarily moved from Canberra to Brisbane for work when he disappeared. (Supplied)
'Forever left wondering'
Mr Wood resigned from the department in mid-2001 and was working as a private consultant and macro-economics lecturer at the time of his disappearance.
"It was up in Moreton Bay, in Queensland. [Police] travelled out and they found his boat moored in the water but no sign of anybody on board," Ms Wood said.
She said police had called off the search after eight days, and a coronial inquest was later held into her father's disappearance.
"My dad was a really gentle, kind, brilliant man. He was incredibly clever. Very much a family man."
"It's something that I think about every single day, just not having really a definitive answer," she said.
"You're left with questions about 'what ifs' that goes on, with no end date."
That uncertainty has taken a significant toll.
"It will take your mind places that you know you don't want to go, definitely dark places," she said.
"Forever left wondering where somebody is or where they've gone; it's just continuous."
Cathy Wood says police called off the search for her father after eight days. (Supplied)
Psychologists call it "ambiguous loss" — a profound sense of grief without certainty or closure.
"Our brains are hardwired to try and fill gaps in knowledge, so you are constantly ruminating on every possible and impossible scenario as to the fate of your loved one," CEO of The Missed Foundation Loren O'Keeffe said.
"That's why psychologists around the world consider ambiguous loss to be the most traumatic type of loss and the most unmanageable form of stress."
Police received 49,000 missing persons reports last year
Data from the AFP-led National Missing Persons Coordination Centre reveals more than 49,000 missing persons reports were made in Australia last year — an average of one every 11 minutes.
Crime Stoppers Australia defines a missing person as "anyone who is reported missing to police, whose whereabouts are unknown, and where there are fears for the safety or concern for the welfare of that person".
Richard Wood worked as a senior Commonwealth Treasury official. (Supplied)
While most people are found within a week, 2,827 people had been missing for more than three months by the end of 2025. Police classify these cases as 'long-term missing'.
For their loved ones, specialised support can be hard to find.
"We were offered the opportunity to go up to Queensland and get on a boat and be taken out to the site where the boat was found, if that would 'bring us some peace'," Ms Wood said.
"We haven't had any ongoing support after that.
"I thought I had exhausted all my resources … to find myself some help."
Foundation offers support to affected families
A Google search directed Ms Wood to The Missed Foundation and Ms O'Keeffe, who has been working to lighten that burden since 2013.
"I started The Missed Foundation because it was the organisation that our family needed when my brother disappeared in 2011," Ms O'Keeffe said.
"I remember asking Geelong Police, the day that my brother disappeared, what to do and they just said, 'do whatever you feel like you need to do', which is not particularly helpful in a moment of distress."
Cathy Wood discovered The Missed Foundation after her father's disappearance. (Supplied)
The former communications advisor quit her job to launch 'Dan Come Home', encompassing "media coverage, nationwide billboards, T-shirts, celebrity shout-outs, bumper stickers, fun runs, and an unprecedented social media following".
That initiative became the Missing Persons Advocacy Network (MPAN), which rebranded as The Missed Foundation (Missed) in 2023 "to better reflect their work".
Now, 'Missed' provides everything from specialised counselling and legal advice, to billboards and educational resources.
"The sorts of things that help to humanise missing loved ones and alleviate the profound practical and emotional impact on families left behind," Ms O'Keeffe said.
Loren O'Keeffe says community support is important for families of missing people. (Supplied: Maricarmen Rubí Baeza)
Public resources for long-term support lacking
She said it operated specifically in the long-term space "because that's where there typically are no other support services".
"That's typically when the police resources, if there were any to begin with, have usually been exhausted,"
Ms O'Keeffe said.
"The media is no longer interested in the story and therefore the public has moved on.
"That's where our charity comes in to try and help families navigate what is their worst nightmare."
Ms Wood said when she talked to somebody who understood exactly what she was going through, "you have that sense of connection, but there's also some relief that you're not the only one going through this".
Ms O'Keeffe said Missed was working "with about 100 families all across Australia who have very different sets of circumstances and therefore very different needs".
"We are fielding inquiries from government agencies like DFAT and Services Australia and senior police, psychologists, GPs [and] social workers, who just don't know what to do and how to support families in this predicament because it is a very complex trauma and we have very few trained specialists to support people left behind."
