Agenda item

This report  informs members about children who go missing from care and missing from home. The report updates them on statutory guidance and responsibility, and  further informs them about the local Haringey context and the actions being taken.

 The Committee considered a report about children that go missing from care and missing from home . The Committee gained further understanding about the  statutory guidance  followed by the council when children go missing  and what the council’s responsibilities are .   This was a particular national area of concern especially when it was concerning  vulnerable  children and  children under the age of 11.  Haringey  was part of 3 London boroughs awarded  £300,000 of funding over the next 3 years  through an  externally funded joint project with Aviva (formerly Norwich union), the Railway Children international charity and Barnardos. This was an early intervention project, beginning in November,  aimed at  engaging with and supporting  with children that were likely to go missing from home and reduce the level of harm that they could come to. 

Members of the Committee were provided with some local context  about the children that are reported missing in Haringey.  Usually the primary sources for reporting missing children to the service were the police.   It was noted that  children could be reported for a number of reasons  i.e lateness in  coming  home from school,  children going missing in the shopping centre,  missing from home overnight  or not coming back following  attendance at evening events .  All of these circumstances were recorded by the Children’s service . The Safeguarding service  had  established a triage  system involving a multi agency response to  absences in their  area of responsibility . This was set out in appendix 2 of the report  and used  to assess and measure the level of concern that should be given when they receive a report that a child has gone missing.  Where there was the highest concern it often indicated that there is an improper activity involved which lead to a series of  assessments and  speedy responses.

Section 5.2 of the report detailed the number of children between April and mid September 2011 that  had gone missing. It was noted that 51 children out of 630  LAC   had gone missing from care or had a period of unauthorised absence. The Committee noted that of these 51 children there were two children still missing. Child A  came from an extended Gypsy Roma  family where other members of the family have previously gone missing and returned . At the current time Police were trying to locate this young person. The second young person went missing from care . He was an unaccompanied minor  and UK boarder agencies had been notified as he has previously tried to leave the country.   The Committee noted that when children go missing from a placement the service will try and ascertain whether  there are any issues with the child placement .

Some Members expressed particular concern about LAC that are placed in residential homes  as they seemed to be the highest number  going missing .Officers explained that children that go missing from residential homes  are older teenagers and there will a higher difficulty in dealing with these absences with different levels of engagement undertaken with the young people .  The Committee noted that it was not always the case  that  placing older children  in a residential homes was the last option  but  would largely be a placement of choice  as the children  may have   previously been in  unsuccessful foster care placement . Young people  that went missing from residential  homes may have previously also absconded   when in a foster placement.

 In terms of monitoring children that go missing from placements, the Deputy Director or Children and Families  received weekly reports , and  completed risk assessments. There  was  quite a tight process for  recording  absences which had been recently reviewed to ensure that all departments in the Children and Families service were  fully  aware of the details to record when a child/missing person goes missing.

 It was noted that the  Barnado’s joint borough project on  missing children would,  as part of its remit, be awareness  raising,  with  the selected children and young people,  about the situations/ groups to avoid where they could be vulnerable and  open to  inducement into unsafe activities.

The Chair enquired about the work with  Gypsy Roma families . The Committee noted that the  council was working with the London Councils and Bulgarian government on tackling  the trafficking of young people from this community into the borough. The Committee learnt that,  through a previously funded project,  the Safeguarding service had gained  a wealth of experience  and knowledge about the  risks of vulnerable children being subject to sexual exploitation and could use this in their work  with the community . The service were  aware of the named addresses  that the  Gypsy Roma families  moved  to and from in London so that they were able to communicate with the  boroughs that  they moved to . There was also a Romanian and Bulgarian  speaking  staff member in the  Children and Families team who was able to provide vital language support to Social Workers and police working  with   children in this community that were in the care of the service. This member of staff  was also assisting the service to ensure children under the age of 4  in the Gypsy Roma community had access to GP services and were  being seen by health workers if required.

The statutory guidance applicable when children go missing from home was attached to the report and it was recommended that the Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee could consider the statistic for children missing from home and the strategies  in place to deal with these occurrences. There was also a scrutiny review on missing children and it would be worthwhile checking the areas that they were considering in case of cross over.