ACPO Guidance on the Management, Investigation and Recording of Consultation response Missing Persons.

Transcription

1 ACPO Guidance on the Management, Investigation and Recording of Consultation response Missing Persons The Children s Society Response January 2010 Susie Ramsay Policy Adviser The Children's Society Edward Rudolf House Margery Street London WC1X 0JL Tel: susie.ramsay@childrenssociety.org.uk Page 1 of 9

2 The Children s Society The Children s Society was founded in 1881, we are a leading national charity and service provider. Our direct action, delivering solutions and results through a network of projects, supports those children who face danger, discrimination and disadvantage. We turn around the lives of 50,000 children and their families every year. Our pioneering research and influential campaigning protects the rights of all children. Working alongside front-line partners, we listen to, and understand their professional requirements. Providing local solutions for local needs, we help achieve statutory targets and ensure that children reach their full potential. The Children's Society's works with many groups of children including those who; runaway or go missing, are at risk of/ or involved in sexual exploitation and those involved in the youth justice system. We run ten projects working with children and young people who runaway or go missing from home or care. Examples of our practice with young people: Safe in the City, Birmingham The project runs four projects, which work with children and young people at risk on the streets, including: The LAMP (Looked After Missing Persons) Project focuses on children and young people running away from care settings. These include children s homes, managed both by Birmingham City Council, and by some private providers, and foster-carers. These children and young people will often have come into care from dysfunctional families, and may have already been exposed to neglect and abuse of all types. LAMP tries to reduce risk-taking behaviour and help impact on identified problems. Birmingham Young Runaways Initiative - This provides valuable support to children and young people running away from home, and their families. It is now citywide, after a successful pilot that focused on runaways in two Birmingham Police Areas. It sets out to reduce the risk of children and young people becoming the victims or perpetrators of crime while at risk on the streets. It hopes to result in less children and young people entering the care system through early intervention. SCARPA, Newcastle The project provides an intensive support service to young people who are either experiencing, or are at risk of running away, sexual exploitation, or trafficking. The Page 2 of 9

3 project aims to deliver an early intervention service to children and young people (target age 11-18) who are identified as being at risk of long-term negative outcomes. Referrals are be taken by mainstream services that are well placed to identify this group of young people; from police, sharing information on children reported missing, through to workers from other agencies who suspect that a young person is running away. SCARPA aims to make contact with at-risk young people, through working directly with them or outreach models. General comments The Children s Society welcomes the revision of the ACPO Guidance on the Management, Investigation and Recording of Missing Persons. Our comments on the guidance relate to children and young people from our experience of delivering practice with this group. As highlighted in the guidance many of the safeguards will relate to both young people and adults. This guidance has been a major step forward in supporting a change of attitude for many forces to missing people and has demonstrated positive outcomes in forming more robust approaches to intelligence. However, there are clearly still forces where this has not been implemented and appropriate action should be taken to ensure that all forces have MISPER leads and electronic case recording systems. We support the focus of the guidance on the need to get a right balance between increasing priority on this issue and reducing unnecessary reports, to ensure that resources are in the right place to safeguard children and young people. The suggested amendments to the guidance should ensure that young people s needs are better supported and they get the appropriate response from agencies. This guidance should include reference to National Indicator 71, as police forces are required to work with the local authority and local agencies to share information and intelligence on young people running away or going missing. Specific comments on the guidance The guidance relates to all people who go missing, however in some sections (such as p6) this refers to all people, but then references the DCSF Statutory Guidance on children missing from home and care, which is only relevant to under 18s. The vulnerabilities, specific risk factors and support required for under 18s should be made clear in the guidance. It is important to highlight the proportion of missing incidents by young people each year (70 per cent). This will demonstrate that a coordinated strategic response to this issue is needed to safeguard young people. Page 3 of 9

4 Introduction P6. Paragraph 3. This sentence is not clear. It could be mis-read as meaning that children who are sexually exploited are committing a criminal offence. It could be made clearer by writing that missing incidents may lead to uncovering exploitative and criminal behaviour against vulnerable children and young people and adults. P8. The removal of the unauthorised absence category is a positive step, this will prevent over-reporting and mis-reporting of young people, and ensure that care home workers will have to make a thorough investigation of a young person s whereabouts before reporting them as a missing person. Section 2: Initial reporting P Recording system. We welcome the development in this guidance and within the Police Code of Practice, the requirement that that all police forces should operate an electronic case recording system. From our Stepping Up (2007) survey, we found that only 40 per cent of police forces used an electronic system. This meant that they were unable to access sufficient data to be able to provide information on levels of need. The police are the primary custodians of data as they will hold the missing person reports, therefore they need to be able to share this effectively other agencies to provide an intelligence led response to safeguard young people who runaway or go missing, to enable local areas to fulfil responsibilities set out in National Indicator 71. Section 3: Assessment of risk P Factors that influence risk. From our practice with young people we know that some groups may not be identified as being at risk due to their behaviour, and the assumption that they are street wise (particularly boys). The perception is that the more young people runaway, the less at risk they are, however we know from our practice and research that young people may be putting themselves at greater risk of harm the more times they run. Further statistical analysis undertaken on the Still Running II data 1 shows that young people most at risk while they are away are: 1 Rees, G., Franks, M., Medforth, R., (2009). Commissioning, Delivery and Perceptions of Emergency Accommodation for Young Runaways. The Children s Society: The University of York. Page 4 of 9

5 In a minority group (including disabled young people, those born outside of the UK and those identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual). Had started running away at an early age/ and had run away more often Had been reported to the police as missing. It would be useful to include this information in the risk factors. Section 4: Investigation P Children missing from home and from care. This section is clear and reinforces many of the messages set out in the DCSF Statutory Guidance on children missing from home or care, for example giving equal emphasis on the vulnerabilities of young people missing from home and care. It would be useful to include that young people will run away from, and run to situations in which they are vulnerable and at risk. Young people may also not think of themselves as running away, or in danger, they may feel that they are staying away or going deliberately missing. Including some general statistics from Still Running II 2 to provide context on the scale of the issue would be helpful, such as: the number of annual reported incidents of young people running away (129,000) the risks for children and young people when they are missing, i.e. one in twelve were hurt of harm while away, one in eight will use risky survival strategies while away. Children and young people s reasons for running; family conflict, maltreatment, being forced to leave, personal problems. Demographic information, such as; girls being more likely to runaway and the average age of young people being years old. P32. Joint training sessions. The Children s Society delivers joint training sessions for police and local agencies; this has proved to be very beneficial in developing a multi-agency response to young people. P33. Good practice example working with care home staff. A more detailed case study of how the police, local authority and voluntary sector work together to support both young people who have run away from care and 2 Rees, G & Lee, J. (2005) Still Running II. London, The Children s Society. Page 5 of 9

6 home would be beneficial. Our Street Safe project in Lancashire, or Safe in the City Birmingham could be used as good examples of this. P33. The sentence referring to going missing may be considered as an indicator of other factors may be misunderstood as relating a young person s involvement in sexual exploitation as a criminal offence. It would be useful in this section to reference to the DCSF guidance on sexual exploitation and trafficking. P Children in secure accommodation. The use of secure accommodation for young people who runaway or go missing, is not included in the DCSF Statutory Guidance on children who run away and go missing from home or care. We have concerns about this section being included in the guidance, as this may be seen as a directive from the Government/ ACPO to continue to use this practice. Our experience tells us that local authorities are already using Section 25, further promotion of this power may have a detrimental impact on children and young people who runaway. Evidence from our practice tells us that children and young people who runaway should not be placed in secure accommodation, as this response escalates the issues and behaviours of young people. Many young people see this as punishment for running away, reasons for which may include being a victim of abuse, or family breakdown. P Family Liaison and Support. Support for families during missing incidents is very important. The main reason young people run away is due is poor family relationships and conflict. There is a lack of parenting advice and family mediation to support young people and parents to work through their problems. By supporting the voluntary sector to deliver this, repeat incidences of running away can be reduced. However, we must also consider young people who are not reported as missing by their parents/ carer (two-thirds of young people), this may be due to maltreatment or being forced to leave home. A safeguarding approach to identifying and supporting these young people is essential. P42. Reasons for running away/ going missing. An important factor to consider is when young people are being sexually exploited, they might not realise that their safety is at risk. They may be going missing which at that point may be exciting and a way of escape for them. The role of the voluntary sector to provide independent return interviews is crucial, young people may not want to disclose anything to a police officer, or a social worker. Evidence from our practice delivering return interviews shows that voluntary sector workers are particularly skilled in building trust and operate at high threshold of confidentiality, Page 6 of 9

7 therefore they can work with young people to understand why they are running, what the risks are, and develop strategies to keep themselves safe. P45. Good Practice Example Return Interviews. Street Safe is a project of The Children s Society, please could this be referenced as such. It would be useful to make clear that Street Safe is a voluntary sector project, therefore is a preferred provider of return interviews. P Missing Persons Coordinator. We support the directive to police forces to have a MISPER co-ordinator. Our Stepping Up survey found that where areas had a dedicated officer with strategic responsibility for the issue this had huge benefits for multi-agency working. A single point of contact on missing within a police force enables more effective investigation and relationships to be built with key local partners. This may be through agreed protocols to make daily or weekly updates to a voluntary sector project about which young people have runaway or gone missing. In areas where there is no MISPER co-ordinator we have found that referrals from the police to deliver services for young people are often incomplete, with the level of risk the young person is exposed to being unclear, or referrals are inappropriate. P50 Good practice example Missing Persons coordinators. This example needs to be more detailed about how this works in practice, and what the benefits are for multi-agency working, for example assessing the level of needs and sharing information with partners. Good Practice example - The Children s Society s Check Point project In 1999 Check Point was one the original agencies, alongside the police, which developed Torbay s protocol for children missing from home or care. The project has been involved with reviewing and revising this protocol. The Police, Children s Services and Check Point deliver joint training to professionals on the protocol and issues regarding runaways. These agencies work together to monitor and assess Devon response to National Indicator 71. Check Point has a protocol with the police to undertake all independent return interviews for children reported missing. The project is in daily contact with the police s missing intervention managers and receive information about all young people from Torbay that are reported missing. This enables them to offer an independent casework approach to young people, which can also encompass all other service within Check Point for example, drugs and alcohol, sexual health and counselling. The project works in partnership to ensure good safeguarding procedures are followed, including issuing Section 2 notices to adults who are identified as being at risk to children and young people. The project has played an integral part of the Page Torbay s 7 of Missing 9 Persons Forum since The Forum was re-launched in December Future plans are to jointly run a consultation workshop with young people who have runaway so we can continue to review and improve services.

8 Section 5: Harm Reduction Strategies P Prevention and Intervention. The role of the police to provide data and intelligence on patterns of running/ going missing by young people is integral to inform local areas response to young people through the National Indicator 71. Reference in this section should be given to the indicator and the importance of the police to share information. P Abduction or Harbourers Warning. It would be useful to include a Good Practice example about how Harbourers Warnings are issued, how multi-agency working can result in disrupting perpetrators. A link to a blank template of a Harbourer s warning letter should be included. P Sexual Exploitation. Reference should be made to the DCSF Safeguarding Children from Sexual Exploitation Guidance. Specific mention should be made that child sexual exploitation affects both girls/ young women and boys/ young men. As stated earlier in this consultation response, it is important to recognise the vulnerability factors relating to boys and young men. Additional behaviour indicators for boys are: Being aggressive or violent Having contact with unknown adults outside social group Being seen in locations known for exploitation, or adult venues. Further information can be found on pages 45-6 of the guidance (DCSF, 2009) 3. Section 6: Working with other agencies P A multi-agency response. We welcome the focus on taking a strategic approach to reducing the number of missing incidents by young people; this will enable a better understanding of their needs and will reduce the risks faced by them. An integral part of this approach involves accurate informed data collection, multi-agency working to share information and clear leadership. Therefore this section must relate to police responsibilities for sharing information as part of the local response to National Indicator 71. It needs to be made clearer that multi-agency working should happen to protect children who run away from both care and home. This section currently only 3 Department for Children, Schools and Families (2009) Safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation. HM Government: London. Page 8 of 9

9 mentions multi-agency working in relation to children in care. It could be strengthen by referring again to the DCSF Statutory Guidance on children who run away from home or care. P Information Sharing. This section references the recording of information and intelligence as evidence. This is a particular issue for projects working with sexually exploited young people, in working with the police to gather information to convict perpetrators. It may be useful to include a Good Practice example on how this has been successfully carried out. Safe and Sound project in Derby working with Derbyshire Police Force would be a good example. P71. Data Information on the Police Code of Practice and National Indicator 71 should be included earlier in the Guidance, as this provide context to the missing persons investigations and what information is required by other agencies to support young people. Appendix This section should include the contact details of voluntary sector organisations, such as The Children s Society and Barnardos who deliver support projects to young people who runaway, go missing or are sexually exploited. These organisations provide advice, information and signpost the police to projects working in their local area to enable multi-agency working. The Children s Society also delivers training and consultancy to the police on young runaways and child sexual exploitation. Page 9 of 9