Reflections- Our Practice, Our Partnership -Response to Missing Children

Contents

Executive Summary

Josie’s Story

Reflections- Our Practice, Our Partnership -Response to Missing Children

Celebrations

Challenges for the Partnership work around missing children

Impact of our work

Croydon Missing Profile

Key Highlights

Total number of recorded missing episodes

All children who had a missing episode

Missing / Away from placement without authorisation

Particularly vulnerable children who had a missing episode

Croydon looked after children placed out of borough with frequent missing episodes

Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC LAC)

Children with repeat missing episodes: Top 10 repeating individuals

Children Missing Education………………………………………………………………………………………………………

High Risk Missing children- links to Trafficking, Sexual Exploitation and County Lines

Concerns Whilst MIssing ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….13

What young people tell us about why they go missing ………………………………………………………………….13

Efforts taken to locate missing children ………………………………………………………………………………………….14

Services & Interventions

Key facts and figures ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Feedback from Young people about services offered ……………………………………………………………………….16

Croydon’s Multi-Agency Missing Children’s Panel ……………………………………………………………………………..16

Conclusions and Recommendaitons …………………………………………………………………………………………………17

Executive Summary

This report covers the September 2015 – August 2016. This report is informed by data captured in the Children’s Recording System (CRS) and the Daily Missing Reports. Key findings are presented regarding the current Croydon missing profile, intervention strategies and practice observations.

• In total there were 2247 missing episodes from 478individual young people.

• There has been a reduction over the year in both the number of young people missing on a daily basis and the duration of missing episodes.

• 83% of missing episodes were from Croydon LAC. Of these Croydon LAC episodes, 51% were from Local LAC and 49% UASC LAC.

• Ninety-six Croydon LAC who were placed out of borough had a missing episode. The most frequent reason for going missing was returning to see friends/family.

• 55% of the unique known individuals were Croydon LAC (of whom 43% were Local LAC and 57% UASC LAC).

• The most frequent single demographic group was male UASC LAC of Albanian nationality.

• All of the top 10 repeating individuals were looked after (6 Local LAC, 4UASC LAC).

• UASC LAC who had a missing episode were 97% male. The most frequent age of UASC LAC who had a missing episode was 16 years old and their most frequent ethnicity was other white – Albanian.

• Twenty-one different Local Authorities placed children in Croydon who had a missing episode (the highest number of children with a missing episode were placed by Lambeth - 15).

• Fifty individuals who had a missing episode have previously been discussed at the MASE panel, 26 of whom were taken onto the MASE protocol.

• 14 missing children have been identified to have links between missing, CSE and County Lines

• There has been an increased in the numbers of Return Home interviews completed; however, the take up is still low and we have yet achieved capacity to offer return home interviews to all Croydon children with a missing episode.

• The multi-agency partnership involved in missing work strongly supports the implementation of a preventative whole school approach emphasising education around sexuality and healthy relationships.

• There are identified gaps in our understanding of the experience of Albanian youth who go missing and Croydon looked after children placed in other boroughs.

Josie’s Story

Josie, a 14 year old young woman, was referred to the Missing Project by the NSPCC following a Return Home Interview (RHI). The Young Person Advocate (YPA) from the Missing Project and the NSPCC worker discussed the case prior to the RHI, and it was felt it could be a potential referral to the project. The YPA attended the RHI with the NSPCC worker to meet with Josie and to talk to her about the support available from the Missing Project.

This was the first reported incident of Josie going missing; she did not return home after school. Josie disclosed at the RHI that she had taken the train to London, her intention had been to end her life. Josie’s low self-esteem, limited social interactions, isolation, and conflict with her Mum contributed towards her suicidal feelings.

Josie presented as withdrawn, isolated and lacking appropriate social interactions. There was an identified breakdown in the relationship between Josie and her Mother. Josie’s Mother imposed strict boundaries at home; Josie had limited access to a computer and phone, and was not allowed to watch television, these boundaries had resulted in conflict within the home.

Josie welcomed the support of the YPA and developed a positive working relationship. Josie had not formed any friendships in or out of school, as a result of issues around trusting others, she was therefore isolated. Josie was able to share her concerns and feelings around relationships and trust with the YPA. Through discussion and activities Josie was able to explore healthy relationships and develop her self-esteem. The YPA worked closely with the school to support Josie, as a result the school assigned Josie as a ‘Buddy’ to a new student. This supported Josie to develop a friendship group within school. Josie also shared feeling uncomfortable in her female body, this was further impacting upon her self-esteem, as well as the relationship with her Mother. Josie was able to explore this with her YPA, and the YPA has helped her to access LGBTQI support networks.

Josie was supported by the YPA to access her GP as a result of her low mood and previous suicidal feelings. The GP was very thorough in their assessment of presenting needs, and identified the need for therapeutic support for Josie’s Mother as well. Josie’s Mother has been engaging in this therapeutic support, and Josie acknowledges the positive impact of this on their relationship.

Josie has had no further missing episodes since engaging in 1:1 support. She reports feeling happier, healthier, and more fulfilled. There are notable improvements in the relationship between Josie and her Mother, and Josie has developed lasting appropriate peer and support networks.

Reflections- Our Practice, Our Partnership -Response to Missing Children

Celebrations

We have much to be proud of in our work around missing children here in Croydon. We have put resources into this work with the addition of analyst post within the team to help with data collection and analysis and to maintain a robust research methodology to our data management. The Missing Panel has a consistent membership representing all key partners and disciplines and meets regularly with excellent attendance by both members and social workers. Our rate of RHIs completed has improved from last year, albeit our numbers remain much lower than we would want. We have a greater understanding of our missing profile and are more able to make links between multiple vulnerabilities such as county lines, CSE and gang involvement. We are still mindful however of the gaps that we’ve identified in our understanding especially around the experience of UASC LAC who go missing/unauthorised absence and Croydon LAC placed out of borough. We have significantly strengthened the join up between children missing from home/care and Children Missing from Education. IROs are more actively involved in the management of missing episodes- ensuring that missing strategy meetings are convened. The IROs use the DMR to keep updated on their young people who go missing and often provide valuable intelligence and updates to the missing team.

For over 2 years now the Missing team continue to produce a daily missing report (DMR) that is sent to all managers in CSC as an additional tool to assist them in managing missing episodes within their teams. The report format has been modified and tweaked over the years and in the current version, risk ranks and provides a brief synopsis of every child known to be missing on any given day. Our colleagues in MASH, Education and YOS use this report as a daily tool in their service management and the 2 way communication between their service areas and the Missing Team is brilliant, with rich information shared across partners. Heads of Service and managers in other delivery areas also use the DMR, but there is evidence to suggest that this perhaps less routinely utilised.

The Missing work space in CRS is fully functional including the template for Return Home interviews. Social workers are now able to manage missing episode within the system. We have yet to achieve 100% compliance to our practice expectations but there is a marked increase in the number of missing episodes that are properly being reported. We are slowly developing confidence in the data we are now able to pull from CRS.

Both Children Social Care and the Metropolitan police (Croydon Command) have committed to the work around missing children by adding additional resources to their respective teams. Though more resources are needed, particularly in the area of prevention, this is an appreciated boost to our overall capacity.

Finally, perhaps one of our finest achievements, yet more difficult to “measure” is the deep spirit of collaboration amongst partners. There is less difficulties in communication, information sharing feels easier and more readily available. Partners and front line staff attend meetings and panels prepared to discuss ways to support our young people who are missing. There is more joined up thinking across professional disciplines and greater sensitivity to multi vulnerabilities for young people.

Challenges for the Partnership work around missing children

This is a time of significant constraint on resources. Interventions with this cohort of young people are riddled with complexity- from logistical (not being available to work with due to missing) to many of these children suffering with trauma and pain that has left them suspicious and slow to developing effective partnerships with professionals. The time needed to build these relationships is significant, project staff regularly make up to 5-8 contacts in order to engage a young person in services. Often even after the young person has agreed to services, they can be difficult to pin down for work. A ‘one-off’ intervention such as an RHI is resource intensive and can entail many hours of work (even if the child is not interviewed); there is a need for follow-up services to address problems including abuse, trauma and loss.The work is intensive and emotionally demanding; and ‘engagement failure’ rates require further exploration.

The demand is significant here in Croydon, are missing numbers though decreasing are still large. We do not have capacity to dedicate the necessary time for each young person with a missing episode to have services and currently prioritise according to risk.

We need to understand further the pattern of missing children. In particular we have started to identify when 2 or more children go missing who know one another and who go missing at the same time. We also need to further improve the data and accuracy of missing children as well as better understand details of OLA missing in Croydon especially those missing from care homes. We also need to better understand the numbers of Croydon children placed outside of the borough who go missing.

Supporting the learning and development needs of staff working with missing children. We have a dynamic and changing work force within our partnership and it will always be a challenge to keep staff updated and launch training curriculums that are well attended by staff. The continued challenge is to try new, creative ways to engage staff. An example, the Missing Panel had trainings scheduled and few attendees attended. The trainers decided to come onto the floor and offer “pop-up” training to groups of social workers at their desk.

Better embedding of the National Referral Mechanism process in our work with missing children and those with multiple vulnerabilities such as CSE and county lines. Social workers and front line staff will need to be supported in understanding the NRM process- including referral pathway. Specifically more training and guidance is needed for the partnership around child trafficking to better recognise potential signs.

Finally, a challenge that cannot go un-noted is the challenge to the entire partnership and LCSB to support a model for a whole school approach to healthy relationships and sexual development. To provide preventative education and support with a goal of reducing the number of children that actual go missing or face harm from CSE or county lines.

Impact of our work

Below is a beautiful visual of the impact of our efforts. We are making a difference. Over this year there has been a decrease in the number of children missing daily. From analysis of episodes length we also know that in the main, children that do go missing are staying away for shorter durations. All indications are that, even though there is still much to develop and refine, we are on the right track.

Croydon Missing Profile

Missing episodes were recorded using Daily Missing Reports throughout the year, as well as reports from the Children’s Recording System (CRS) database. Children aged between 5 – 17 years old were included.To follow the methodology of the Department of Education’s (DfE) reporting of missing episodes, information was collected on children who were missing or away from their placement without authorisation, for any length of time. Additional information from Children Missing from Education

Key Highlights

• Total of 2247 episodes from 478individual young peoplerecorded on CRS, and 19 individuals not recorded on CRS who only appeared on the Police daily missing report. This is higher than last year’s reported 320 children who had a missing incident during the year, due to increased recording from more frequent daily missing reports following new staff appointments.

• 1868 (83.1%) of the total recorded episodes were from Croydon LAC.
• 951 (50.9%) Local LAC
• 917 (49.1%) UASC LAC

• 266 (11.8%) of the episodes were from children missing from home

• The average number of missing episodes per looked after child who went missing was 7 (1868episodes from 262 Croydon LAC)

• The average number of missing episode per non-looked after child who went missing from home was 1.8 (266 episodes from 143 children missing from home)

• The highest total number of missing episodes was 61 (a further break down of episodes from this individual is provided in a later section of this report)

Total number of recorded missing episodes

Total number of episodes = 2279
Missing from care (1868; 83%) / Missing from home (266; 12%) / Missing from OLAs (113; 5%)
UASC LAC
(917; 49%) / Local LAC
(951; 51%) / Open to CSC (183; 69%) / Not open to CSC
(83; 31%)
male / female / male / female / male / female / male / female / male / female
Total with missing episode / 901
(98% of total episodes from UASC LAC) / 16
(2% of total episodes from UASC LAC) / 335
(35%of total episodes from Local LAC) / 616
(65% of total episodes from Local LAC) / 65
(36% of total episodes from those open to CSC) / 118
(65% of total episodes from those open to CS) / 48
(58% of total episode from those not open to CSC) / 28
(34% of total episodes from those not open to CSC) / 59
(52% of total episodes from OLAs) / 54
(48% of total episodes from OLAs)

All children who had a missing episode

Total number of children with a missing episode = 478
Missing from care (262; 55%) / Missing from home (143; 30%) / Missing from OLAs (73; 15%)
UASC LAC
(150; 57%) / Local LAC
(112; 43%) / Open to CSC (70; 49%) / Not open to CSC
(73; 51%)
male / female / male / female / male / female / male / female / male / female
Total with missing episode / 146
(97% of total UASC LAC who had a missing episode) / 4
(3% of total UASC LAC who had a missing episode) / 51
(46%of total Local LAC who had a missing episode) / 61
(54% of total Local LAC who had a missing episode) / 30
(43% of total open to CSC who had a missing episode) / 40
(57% of total open to CSC who had a missing episode) / 41
(56% of total not open to CSC who had a missing episode) / 25
(34% of total not open to CSC who had a missing episode) / 39
(53% of total OLAs who had a missing episode) / 34
(47% of total OLAs who had a missing episode)
Most frequent group within each category: Ethnicity, Nationality and Age, for those who had a missing episode
Missing from care (262; 55%) / Missing from home (143; 30%) / Missing from OLAs (73; 15%)
UASC LAC
(150; 57%) / Local LAC
(112; 43%) / Open to CSC (70; 49%) / Not open to CSC
(73; 51%)
male / female / male / female / male / female / male / female / male / female
Ethnicity[1] / A
(76; 52% of total male UASC LAC who had a missing episode) / C
(2; 50% of total female UAC LAC who had a missing episode) / D
(20; 39% of total male Local LAC who had a missing episode) / A
(23; 37% of total female Local LAC who had a missing episode) / D
(19; 63% of total male open to CSC who had a missing episode) / A
(20; 50% of total female open to CSC who had a missing episode) / unknown
(25; 61% of total male not open to CSC who had a missing episode) / unknown
(14; 56% of total female not open to CSC who had a missing episode) / unknown
(31; 80% of total male OLAs who had a missing episode) / unknown
(23; 68% of total female OLAs who had a missing episode)
Nationality / Albanian
(82; 56% of total male UASC LAC who had a missing episode) / Vietnamese
(2; 50% of total female UASC LAC who had a missing episode) / British
(39; 77% of total male Local LAC who had a missing episode) / British
(51; 84% of total female Local LAC who had a missing episode) / British
(20; 67% of total male open to CSC who had a missing episode) / British
26 (26; 65% of total female open to CSC who had a missing episode) / unknown
(26; 88% of total male not open to CSC who had a missing episode) / unknown
(20; 80% of total female not open to CSC who had a missing episode) / unknown
(39; 100% of total male OLAs who had a missing episode) / unknown
(34; 100% of total female OLAs who had a missing episode)
Age / 16 years old
(61; 42% of total male UASC LAC) / 15 years old
(2; 50% of total female UASC LAC) / 17 years old
(14; 28% of total male Local LAC) / 15 years old
(19; 31% of total female Local LAC) / 16 years old
(8; 27% of total male open to CSC) / 15 years old
(9; 23% of total female open to CSC) / 15 years old
(11; 27% of total male not open to CSC) / 15 and 16 years old
(of each 7; 28% of total female not open to CSC) / 16 years old
(11; 28% of total male OLAs) / 15 years old
(10; 29% of total female OLAs)

The largest single cohort of males who went missing was UASC LAC (48% of total males who went missing). For females the largest single cohort who went missing was Local LAC (37% of total females who went missing). 16 years old is the most frequent age of those who went missing, for both genders. 31% of males and 24% of females who went missing were 16 years old. The majority of those who went missing were between 14 and 17 years old (84% for males and 78% for females). There is a fairly sharp increase in the number of boys that went missing between ages 15 and 16 (20% and 31% respectively) compared to girls where there is an even proportion that went missing between the ages of 15 and 16 (24% for both). Looked after children have a much higher count of missing episodes. White British is the single largest cohort of missing girls who are Local LAC (33%), and Black British for boys (33%). As a group, children from diverse backgrounds go missing at higher rates. 32% of all children who went missing were from ethnicity group A, 10% from ethnicity group B, 10% from ethnicity group C, 23% from ethnicity group D, 4% from ethnicity group E (other or unknown), and 22% had no ethnicity recorded.