Children Missing from Care

The reasons why children go missing from care are often complex; they are statistically more likely to be reported missing than children who are not in care, and when they are missing, they are often more vulnerable, due to their life experiences, which may include trauma from abuse and neglect. For some children, entering care or moving to a new residential home can be stabilising, for others, it may lead to them going missing more often. Additional factors, such as having special educational needs or being neurodivergent, heighten any child’s vulnerability when they are missing.

When a child is missing, it can signal a range of underlying issues, described as push and pull factors. In some cases, children want to avoid returning home at agreed times as they want to be with friends or push boundaries. In others, it may be due to concerns such as mental health or child exploitation - see SP Jersey Safeguarding Children from Exploitation. All missing incidents warrant professional attention to ensure the child’s safety and well-being and should never be viewed in isolation, as they may be a sign that something is wrong.

Reducing the likelihood of a child in care going missing starts with creating a sense of stability for them. All services must keep the child at the centre of their work and focus on building safe, trusting relationships with the child, where professionals from multiple agencies work together in a thoughtful and caring way to develop child-centred, needs-led, proactive responses.

Carers informed by their own professional judgment, knowledge of the child and circumstances surrounding the missing occurrence, are often placed in the best position to determine whether a child whose whereabouts are unknown, is at risk of significant harm or poses a risk to others – see  SP Jersey Respecting and Capturing the Voice of the Child. Before reporting a child as missing to the police, carers, practitioners, and agencies must consider the circumstances for each child on each occasion. Decisions to report a child as missing must be made in the child’s best interests (see UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Article 3). Not all missing incidents warrant police intervention, and inappropriately reporting a child as missing to the police can leave children feeling punished, harm their relationships with carers and professionals and in some cases lead to unintentional criminalisation. Reporting a child as missing to the police is appropriate when there is an immediate risk to the child’s safety or an immediate risk to the safety of others.

In Jersey, effective safeguarding of children and young people relies on timely and appropriate information sharing. All practitioners have a legal and professional duty to share information where necessary to promote the welfare and protect the safety of children.

Practitioners must be familiar with and act in accordance with the Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2022 and commensurate Statutory Guidance on information sharing, as multi-agency working is a statutory requirement, as is, a child-centred approach to decision-making  (underpinned by Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.)  

Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2022, Statutory Guidance explains the role of Corporate Parents as:-  

“individuals and organisations which must work together to plan, deliver and support children and young people who are in care or care experienced”

Stating that this working together should be underpinned by the following values:

• Safety;
• Care;
• Stability;
• Opportunity;
• Love.

It is essential agencies have policies and procedures which clearly outline their roles and responsibilities. All practitioners and agencies must understand their role as corporate parents. The responsibility for children who are looked after who go missing, should not be viewed as the singular responsibility of police and Children’s Social Care (CSC). As effective partnership working is based on practitioners and agencies collaboratively working towards prevention, planning and responses to children to meet their 8 wellbeing indicators. This is to ensure unified responses to help safeguard the child and reduce the risk of them going missing in the first place. As example, access to Education is a right for all children and proactive and preventative activities made available through Education and Jersey Youth Services (JYS) are key to building those safe relationships children need with supportive adults. Children who are looked after should also expect proactive interventions to improve their mental health through Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) as this reduces the likelihood of them going missing in the first place and increases the likelihood of improving outcomes where they do, (see Nice Guidelines 2021 – Looked After Children and Young People.)

When a child goes missing, partner agencies must use coordinated, consistent and restorative approaches to inform Risk Assessments with the use of the Philomena Protocol Form, Safety Plans and Care Plans. Responding to children who are reported as missing is made easier when their strengths, vulnerability and risks are known and where agencies understand their collaborative responsibility to truly work together to meet their needs.

It is important that all practitioners and agencies understand the dynamic nature of risk to a missing child, circumstances can change rapidly for the better or worse. Timely, accurate multi-agency communication is always required, with multi-agency actions led by current risk, to ensure missing children are responded to appropriately and are safeguarded (see Appendix 1: Responding to Missing Occurrences – Children in Care Flow Chart.)

Multi-agency learning and development opportunities are available to practitioners, who should feel confident in their response to safeguarding children who go missing, (see SP Jersey Training).

Understanding the push and pull factors a child may be experiencing, helps practitioners identify a child’s needs and risks. There may also be identifiable, and importantly, collectable patterns associated with a child going missing, in their antecedent behaviours (the things that happened before they went missing), triggers and post missing behaviours linked to push and pull factors.

Push Factors – Things that happen at home or in their environment which are stressful and lead to them going missing, possibly as a need to protect themselves.

Pull Factors – Things that entice them to leave their home or education, usually believing that they can improve their lives in some way or which meet an underlying need.

Children need to build ongoing stable relationships with carers, children in care have said they need the following actions from carers which include: -

• Being heard by those caring for them, who notice and understand what is happening for them;
• Them taking action to help them;
• Respect and a say in decisions and plans made about them;
• Receiving clear explanations about the outcome of assessments and why their views may have not been totally accepted;
• Support in their own right, as well as for members of their family;
• Advocacy, Mind of My Own (MOMO) and direct work etc;
• Protection from all forms of abuse, exploitation and discrimination and the right to special protection and help.

Reporting a child as missing to the police does not resolve the reasons why they have gone missing in the first place, nor does it reduce the likelihood of recurrence. Children should be given time when they come into care to settle with support from the outset. Agency investment to support practitioners includes them having the time they need to build and maintain relationships, which help children in care feel safe and cared for, as this, in turn, reduces the likelihood of them going missing in the first place.

Not all risks to children are known, and risk may come from outside of their homes (extra-familial harm). Carers should have regular, open and supportive listening conversations to understand what is going on in their lives and in their friendships. Capturing their thoughts, hopes, wishes and fears, the positives and negatives of the online world they inhabit. Helping them to consider (where age and ability appropriate) their safety when they are at home (for example, online) and when they are away from home. Discussing the risk of online abuse and child exploitation in the same way as, for example, their use of alcohol or substances - see SP Jersey Safeguarding Children from Exploitation and Safeguarding Children from Technology Facilitated Abuse.

It is important when considering the needs of a child who is missing that parents/carers take some reasonable actions to find them before reporting them to the police. This may include:

• Trying to find them at the place they were last seen or where they were expected to be;
• Physical checks of their home and any other location the child may be hiding within the house (including their bedroom);
• Physical checks of gardens, garages, sheds, grounds and surrounding areas;
• Continued attempts to contact them directly via mobile phone, text or social networking sites (e.g. Twitter/ Facebook/WhatsApp, etc.);
• Contacting the missing child’s family and friends to ascertain if the child or young person is with them or has made contact;
• Going to any locations/addresses they may be known to visit;
• Before reporting them as missing to the police, parents/carers may also wish to call the police and ask for their help to find them by checking their CCTV or looking out for them when they are on patrol.

Please see Appendix 2: Carer Guidance

A significant number of children in care are reported as missing to the police on repeated occasions, and some of this may be avoidable. Carers and multi-agency practitioners are asked not to fall into a pattern of automatically reporting children in care as missing to the police. Multi-agency responses should be based on the: 

• Risk to their safety or others' safety;
• Up-to-date and current knowledge of the child;
• Assessed individual levels of risk and vulnerability;
• Antecedent behaviours, trigger events and the circumstances of the current missing occurrence;
• Their Philomena Protocol Risk Assessment, Safety plans and Care plans (see Appendix 4 Philomena Protocol Guidance and Appendix 5 Philomena Protocol Form).

When a child is not where they were expected to be, unless there is concern for the child’s or another person’s immediate safety, and/or the child has a safety plan indicating that, due to the child’s vulnerability, police intervention is required from the outset of a missing occurrence. Carers, in partnership with CSC, hold initial responsibility to: 

• Take reasonable actions to locate the child, based on the information they have and the circumstances of the missing occurrence, whilst keeping in mind circumstances may change quickly, wait a reasonable time for the child to return home of their own accord (see Appendix 1: Responding to Missing Occurrences – Children in Care Flow Chart and Appendix 2: Carer Guidance).
• Where a child does not return home and concerns escalate, carers should inform CSC and/or the Out of Hours (OOH) Children's Social Care Manager to assist with decisions about next steps, discussing any resources and support they need to help locate the child and develop a plan of care for when the child returns.
• Keep a record of all the actions they take to find the child;
• Make arrangements with CSC about contacting the child’s family (which should be outlined in the child’s care plans and safety plan).

Whilst this practice guidance provides a step-by-step guide, multi-agencies should communicate with each other on an ongoing basis. It is important that positive relationships are built between services so they can support each other in looking for missing children. Those nuanced steps and actions practitioners make together are vitally important. The reasonable actions taken to locate a child may also include carers calling the police before reporting them missing and asking them to look out for them, or checking their CCTV or whilst out on patrol. Or if carers are unable to conduct physical off-site searches, contingency safety plans should be part of the agreements in place about who will undertake them. These agreements, where possible, were recorded in a child’s Philomena Protocol and Care and Safety Plans. Where prior agreements are not in place (i.e. a first missing occurrence) and carers are unable to make physical searches to locate the child, these should be discussed with the child’s social worker and police. The risk to missing children is dynamic, and there are often blurred lines between risk levels, so all actions must be in the child's best interest.

The College of Policing states “the police are entitled to expect parents and carers to accept normal parenting responsibilities and undertake reasonable actions to try and establish the whereabouts of the individual.”

Parents/Carers should report a looked after child as missing to the police in circumstances where: -

• They are concerned about the child’s immediate safety or the immediate risk or safety of others; and/or
• There is an agreed Safety Plan which indicates due to the child’s vulnerability there is a need for immediate police intervention should the child go missing.

Where a child is missing and they cannot be found, carers are advised to report the child as missing, at the point, their concern for the child develops (please see Levels of Intervention Model). When making a missing person’s report the carer and/or child’s social worker should share the copy of the most up-to-date Philomena Protocol Form and any multi-agency Safety and Care Plans should the child go missing.

The police will then complete their own Police Risk Assessment.

The police classification of a person as “missing” will be based on the police risk assessment, at that time and in relation to the risk of significant harm to self or others.

See College of Policing - Missing Persons

Dependant on the outcome of the Police RA, the police may decide not to record the child as a missing child at that point in time, (see Levels of Intervention Model). This would be in particular where on police RA, risk is assessed as very low and the missing incident does not pose concern for the child’s immediate safety or the safety of others; and/or there is no existing safety plan that indicates that the child’s vulnerability requires immediate police intervention. The police will wish for reasonable actions to have been taken to find the child, the responsibility in this case remains at the carers intervention level. However, this does not stop honest, supportive communication between carers, police, children’s social care or any other agency involved at that point in time. The Levels of Intervention Model gives a linear process and is a useful tool for professionals to base decision making on. However, this is a guide and does not, nor should not, stop working together to meet the needs of children. Whilst using the Levels of Intervention Model, at each stage practitioners should feel free to call each other, ask for assistance, come to agreed means of how to approach each situation for each missing episode, with all practitioners working together in the best interest of the child. If risks increase and police intervention is in the best interest of the child, then the level of risk will be adjusted accordingly and result in police deployment. Any dispute regarding risk should be addressed by way of the agreed dispute escalation practice guidance.

Equally, where a child is categorised as at medium risk, police guidance makes clear, this category requires an active and measured response by police and other agencies in order to trace the missing child and support the person reporting. This will involve a proactive investigation and search in accordance with the circumstances to locate the missing child as soon as possible. Where a child is categorised at high risk, Police guidance makes clear, a member of the senior management team or similar command level must be involved in the examination of initial enquiry lines and approval of appropriate staffing levels. Such cases should lead to the appointment of an Investigating Officer and possibly a Senior Investigating Officer. There should be a media strategy and / or close contact with outside agencies. Family support should be put in place and CSC should be notified, (College of Policing.)

Once the police record a Missing Person’s Report for the child, they will: 

• Liaise with the carer about what actions have been taken;
• Create and record a plan of immediate actions;
• Complete a RA and use this to inform what actions will be taken;
• Contact the child’s social worker/the Children’s Services OOH duty team, to understand the child’s risk, vulnerability and use this to make a multi-agency plan;
• Agree a way of ensuring the carer/child’s social worker can share any increased concerns directly with the responding Police Officer/relevant Senior Officer;
• Agree multi-agency actions including agreed ways of maintaining contact and information sharing;
• Set a time to review the Police RA and activity (review of the risk and circumstances may take place before this time if the police receive new information which suggests risks to the child’s safety or the safety of others has increased);
• Once the child has returned home consider carrying out a Prevention Interview, (the type of prevention interview required is determined by risk and carried out in the best interests of the child, for example where a child lives in a residential setting, a prevention interview may be carried out by staff or the reporting party who has a good rapport with the child);
• Send a Missing Child Protection Notification (MCPN) by email to the Multi-Agency Safeguarding HUB (MASH) and to Jersey Youth Services (JYS).

Carers, CSC and the Police must continue to work together and assist each other with continued communication, until the child is found and/or returns home. On the child’s return, an appropriate residential child care officer, will conduct the Return Home Conversation (RHC), JYS will co-ordinate RHC’s for children who are in foster care or in the care of their parents, (see Appendix 1: Responding to Missing Occurrences – Children in Care Flow Chart.)

Where a child is not where they were expected to be, but their location is known, they should not be reported as missing to the police. Carers (and where applicable CSC) should take reasonable actions to locate them and take steps to encourage them to return home.

Where children are not where they were expected to be, their location is known and there: -

• Immediate safety is at risk and/or may pose a safety risk to others; or
• The carer /child’s social worker assesses their location poses a risk to professionals.

agreements can be made in the child’s best interests, taking account for the welfare and safety of the child and others. It is important shared multi-agency responsibility is assumed for all children in care, who are at risk of significant harm and that appropriate information is shared in a timely manner and that this is continuous until the child’s safe return. This may include the need for police intervention.

Child Looked After Team around the Child (TAC) Meetings, should consider in their Wellbeing Care Plans and Safety Planning the likelihood a child may go missing and the actions which will be taken to prevent and protect them if they do. Children should be given a clear understanding around what parents/carers will worry about and how they will respond if they are not where they were expected to be. At the centre of Wellbeing Care Plans and Safety Plans is the child’s voice and where possible (age and capacity determined) children should be involved in their production, as helping them take responsibility, may help to avoid them going missing and/or unnecessarily being reported as missing to the police.

If a known vulnerability for a child in care is that they go missing, it is the responsibility of the child’s social worker to complete the Philomena Protocol Risk Assessment Form (following the Philomena Protocol Guidance – see Appendix 4 and Appendix 5). The completed form should be shared with the child’s carers, their parents where appropriate and the police; and regularly updated with information from Daily Missing Meetings and from prevention interviews and return home conversations. Philomena Protocol Risk Assessment Forms should be shared before any home move (or as soon as practicably possible following emergency moves).

Where relevant, Wellbeing Assessments, Wellbeing Care Plans and Safety Plans should include prevention planning and the actions to be taken when a child’s whereabouts are unknown. Each child should have an agreed home safety plan that includes a level of carer discretion for how it will be implemented.

Philomena Risk Assessments should clarify patterns to previous missing occurrences, known trigger events, places or people of concern whom the child should not visit or have contact with, together with known risk and vulnerability factors, neurodiversity, learning difficulty, protected characteristics, child exploitation, problematic substance use (including alcohol), offending behaviour, peer groups, and locations of concern.

Wellbeing Care Plans and Safety Plans should include a multi-agency of professionals, the child’s carers, and the child and their parents (where appropriate). Along with the Philomena Protocol Form, it should be reviewed regularly in multi-agency TAC meetings, involving CSC, the police, the child’s carers, relevant health and education practitioners and any other service that provides support and care to the child.

If a child is missing on 3 or more occasions within 30 days, a multi-agency strategy meeting will be triggered, and chaired by the most appropriate CSC Team Manager or Senior Practitioner, to understand what is going on for the child and to take forward any relevant actions to support them -see SP Jersey Article 42 Child Protection Enquiries under the Ministers Duty to Investigate.

The Daily Missing Meeting (DMM) takes place to review children missing overnight and to review plans, discuss and agree on multi-agency actions to prevent further missing occurrences.

When a child is missing, they are exposed to a certain level of risk. The Levels of Intervention Model recognises risk may be:

• Acceptable;
• Not acceptable to the parent or carer but does not justify police intervention;
• Unacceptable to both the parents/carers and the police, and justifies immediate police intervention.

The levels of Intervention model sets out how agencies should respond to a child who goes missing.

Please see Appendix 1: Responding to Missing Occurrences – Children in Care Flow Chart.

Partnership working depends on resolving professional differences of opinion as soon as possible. Where staff experience professional differences, they must follow the SP Jersey Resolving Professional Difference/Escalation Policy.

If a child is reported as missing and the police have questions about the appropriateness of the report to them, at that time, they should take time to gain an understanding of the reporting person's concerns. Making clear the reasons behind their decision-making and the alternative actions to be taken, at that moment, to meet the needs of the child. Ensuring the reporting person understands the timescales for them to call back to the police and seek further support where required.

Where the carer/children’s social worker believes police intervention is required, and there is a dispute, they should take time to calmly clarify the reasons for this concern to ensure all parties have the same information.

If professional differences cannot be resolved between carer/ CSC and the police, CSC should immediately escalate the matter to the CSC manager or OOH CSC Manager, who should raise this concern with the Police Duty officer on their behalf, with escalation to the OOH Head of Service and Police Gold (Chief Inspector+) where required.

Disputes must not stop working together on occasions where there are unresolved professional differences; the multi-agency must continue to work together and act in the best interests of the child, to locate and secure the child’s safe return home in the necessary timeframe to protect them, which may include police intervention.

Once professionals are assured of a child’s well-being, the multi-agency, including police and the reporting agency, should arrange a follow-up meeting to understand the basis of professional differences and the steps taken to avoid this problem in the future.

Where there are ongoing concerns regarding agency action or inaction, these should be escalated via the Resolving Professional Differences/Escalation Policy to its conclusion.

Training

SP Jersey offers a multi-agency training programme for all professionals.

If it is suspected that a child has been abducted from care, this requires immediate police notification, where the States of Jersey Police will be the lead agency in the investigation of the case and the child’s recovery. Unless there are Parental Responsibility (PR) issues, in which case Children’s Services would then look at getting a recovery order through the court system, as supported in the Children’s (Jersey) Law 2002.

If it is suspected that a child has been abducted, it is important to hold an immediate strategy discussion/meeting to consider the information available and think about where the child may have been taken; and to gain a clear understanding of the person(s) of concerns, who the child may be with and the level of risk posed to the child from them.

Where a child or young person goes missing and they are pregnant, the unborn child would not be classed as missing; however, the wellbeing, health and development of the unborn child must be considered with proportionate multi-agency action taken to prevent the unborn child from coming to harm (see SB Jersey Multi-Agency Pre-birth Wellbeing Assessment). Where required, an enquiry must be forwarded to the Children and Families HUB in relation to the needs of the unborn child.

From the moment a child looked after goes missing, all those responsible for their welfare and safety should plan for their return.

On their return, a child should always be warmly welcomed and their immediate physical needs attended to. Keeping in mind where a child may have been a victim of a crime, there may be a need to preserve physical evidence for the police, and advice should be sought if this is the case. Whilst remembering, children can be victims of crime even where they appear to have committed a crime themselves.

Where a child returns of their own accord without the knowledge of the police, and they have been reported as missing to the police, the police must be notified immediately.

Arrangements for Prevention Interviews and Return Home Conversations should be confirmed between the police, CSC and carer, together with an agreement as to who will notify relevant agencies and the child’s family (where appropriate) of the child’s return.

The police have a responsibility to ensure that Prevention Interviews are undertaken when a child who was reported as missing is located and/or returns.

The purpose being to: 

• Identify any ongoing vulnerability or risk factors which may have contributed to the child going missing and could contribute to repeat occurrences;
• Establish if the child has suffered any harm whilst missing;
• Establish information that may assist in locating the child if they go missing again;
• Understand if the information gained can inform wider strategic activity and disruption activity against perpetrators.

Prevention Interviews will be carried out as soon as practicable. The type of Prevention Interview is determined by what is in the best interests of the child, which may include: 

• An officer obtains details from the reporting person over the telephone;
• A trusted professional from another organisation conducting a prevention interview and feeding this back to the police by telephone;
• A police officer is being deployed to conduct the Prevention Interview in person.

The person conducting the Prevention Interview should capture a report in the child’s words, document the child’s emotional and physical presentation and take action where this has not already happened to meet the immediate health or safeguarding needs they have, understanding where the child went, who they spent time with, and any safeguarding concerns to inform the child’s safety care plan; including any information which may be relevant to the investigation of a crime.

Where a child frequently goes missing, it may not be practicable or in the child’s best interest for police to see them every time they return home, and multi-agency decision-making will be undertaken with agreement between the police and the child’s carers. The frequency of Prevention Interviews is based on risk, bearing in mind the established link between frequent missing episodes, serious harm and child exploitation.

The Jersey Children’s First Model is the island's Framework for making Wellbeing Assessments, and RHCs should follow it.

All children reported missing to the police must be offered an RHC within 72 hours of their return. The RHC is a restorative, child-centred conversation which takes a supportive, active listening approach carried out by the appropriate Residential Child Care Officer/key worker for children in Residential Care, or by JYS for children living at home or in foster care. They should provide the child with a safe space to talk about any worries or fears they may have. The person carrying out the RHC has some choice about where to carry it out. The purpose is to meet the child’s needs, so this should be in a safe and comfortable space for them. The purpose of the RHC is to support the child. They also provide a key opportunity to learn the reasons a child went missing, to support and safeguard them, and to identify and reduce the risk of future missing episodes.

RHCs should explore how the child feels about their home and determine if the home is a ‘push’ factor concerning the child going missing. Any information received which suggests it is a factor should always be shared with the child’s social worker and IRO. The Children’s Social Worker should discuss the actions required with their senior practitioner or line manager. Where there is an indication of the need for an independent suitably qualified practitioner to carry out an RHC for a child, this should be considered in a timely way to capture the child’s concerns.  See Jersey Youth Services – Leaflets for Children when they go Missing.

Information gained from RHCs should inform the child’s Philomena Protocol Risk Assessment Form, Safety Plans, Wellbeing Assessments and Care Plans.

The person carrying out the RHC should consider the child’s risk of Child Exploitation, see below.

Where a child is going missing from care and is felt to be at risk of CE (including criminal, sexual exploitation and radicalisation), carers should follow SP Jersey Safeguarding Children from Exploitation Practice Guidance and complete a CE Risk Assessment Screening Tool, [see Jersey CE Screening Tool Here]. The completed CE Assessment Risk Screening Tool must then be shared with the Children and Families HUB and the Child’s Social Worker, who should then follow the Jersey CE Pathway for Children with an Allocated Social Worker to reduce their risk of CE.

Where a child is looked after and resides in an out-of-jurisdiction placement (“off island,”) the same principles and practices apply as if they were a looked-after child living “on Island.” The Minister for Jersey continues to hold responsibility for the child where CSC exercise this responsibility on their behalf.

The police force where the child resides (as opposed to SOJ Police) is responsible for reporting the child as missing and for taking action to protect their welfare and return them home.

The off-island placement will: 

• Follow its missing child procedure and notify Jersey CSC (in or out of hours);
• Inform Jersey CSC of the child’s return, where;
• Arrangements will be made with the Local Authority for a Return Home Conversation to be offered & carried out within 72 hours.

CSC will consider the need for a Strategy Discussion/Meeting to safeguard the welfare of the child (see SP Jersey Article 42 Enquiries Under the Ministers Duty to Investigate [here] working in partnership with the local authority in which the child is residing.  On a case-by-case basis, the needs of children who move across local authority boundaries should be sought, where advice from the Law Office Department, Jersey, may be required. 

Appendix 1: Responding to Missing Occurrences – Children in Care Flow Chart.

Appendix 2: Carer Guidance.

Appendix 3: Printable Levels of Intervention Model.

See Philomena Protocol Form Guidance.

See Philomena Protocol Missing Person Incident Form.