The findings raised significant concerns: the data showed that people from Black and Asian communities were missing for longer, less likely to be found by the police, and less likely to be recorded as being at risk, than White people. The statistics were particularly stark for Black children and adults.  

The statistics made national headlines when they were first published, with coverage on Good Morning Britain, and articles in a range of outlets including the Guardian, the Independent, and ITV News. The headlines acknowledged the ‘concerning race disparities’ and the need for these to urgently be addressed.  

How much has changed since we published the report? 

We have seen some success on the report’s recommendations (although it’s likely any changes are not solely due to the report, but brought about by a range of factors):  

• The Department for Education has begun publishing ethnicity data in their statistics about Looked After Children, allowing for better scrutiny of any disparities in the experiences or safeguarding of children from ethnic minorities. 
• Some police forces have improved how they record ethnicity in missing person incidents, and the National Crime Agency’s UK Missing Person Unit are planning to publish more detailed data on ethnicity. 
• A handful of police forces have carried out their own deep-dive reviews to explore disparities in their area and started planning how to address them and improve responses. 

These are important steps in monitoring the issue and will allow for more accountability. However, we know simply improving data collection is not enough. We need tangible actions to ensure change and create a more equitable response for all missing children and adults. 

Lived experiences informing change 

The Police Race Action Plan (PRAP) is a vital tool for generating this change. For the first time in a national police document, the PRAP acknowledged the need for police to improve their response to missing Black people as a key area of focus. In September last year the team behind the Plan asked Missing Black People and Missing People to facilitate a learning event for police colleagues to hear directly from the families of missing people from Black communities, including hearing about some of their experiences of discrimination: 

“But actually when we were on the ground looking for her one night at [the train] station and I went up to British Transport Police. I showed them a picture of my sister and said that we are looking for a missing person. And the police officer, a White woman, just looked at the picture. Glanced at it. And said I am sorry we are looking for another girl. And the other girl is a high-risk missing person. I said if you had bothered to read the flyer my sister is reported officially missing. Can’t you look for two people at once? It turns out the other girl they were looking for was obviously white. It was interesting how quickly they dismissed me.” 

“They diminished me I found later because of my accent and because of my colour.” 

“Over time it was apparent that there was not much interest in those of colour going missing. And why do I say that? My son’s friend who was the humblest child on the planet had gone missing. His parents reported him missing. I reported him missing because I knew he was in touch with my son. When he did appear again, in the community, again no one was interested. He was murdered in cold blood and affected by child criminal exploitation as well. He wasn’t searched for locally neither.” 

“It was not taken seriously at the beginning… The brother and the friend both come from other countries. English is not their first language. They would not take it seriously… Because they are not fully practicing the way of speaking to the police. They are not able to push in the right ways for the police to take action. It is sad when we have to learn a certain language to push people.” 

“What has colour got to do with it? This is my question. It has to stop.” 

These stories of people’s lived experience have been the primary catalyst for change. Following that learning event the PRAP team have scheduled four workshops, to take place throughout 2024, for all police forces. Each workshop will consider an area of disparity or discrimination, and most vitally, will focus on what action can be taken to ensure improvements. The findings will be used to develop pilot projects and national recommendations for all forces to adopt. 

New research  

While this work within the police progresses, we still know much more needs to be understood about Black people’s experiences of missing, and importantly within that: how to better prevent the disproportionate number of people from Black communities going missing, and how to provide better support if someone does go. In light of this we are working with ListenUp on new research into the experiences of Black missing children. 

This research will explore any unique drivers that cause Black children to go missing, what the response from professionals and the media looks like for them, and what could improve things in the future. 

Share your experiences or views 

We want to hear from Black young people who have been missing; from their parents and carers; and from the professionals who work with these young people. 

We have two surveys: 

• For children and young people (16-25)
• For parents, carers or professionals

If you want to talk to us in more detail about the research, or take part in an interview please email josie.allan@missingpeople.org.uk.  

The post The Ethnicity of Missing People report – One year on appeared first on Missing People.

“Don’t punish the behaviour. Explore the feelings behind the behaviour. Because kids don’t just kick off at nothing. Nobody does, really.”

Care experienced young people and criminalisation

Care-experienced young people are at much higher risk of being criminalised, including through being reported missing more than their peers. It’s vital that we understand why this happens, and how to prevent it, to ensure a fairer future for everyone who enters the care system.

Missing People were commissioned in partnership with Llamau and consultant Claire Sands to develop a toolkit for professionals in Wales to support their role in preventing criminalisation. This was funded by the Children’s Commissioning Consortium Cymru (4Cs) as part of the publication of the All Wales Protocol: reducing the criminalisation of care experienced children and young adults.

We know the most important voices to hear when developing tools for professionals are those of young people who are care-experienced themselves. This summer we heard from more than 65 of these young people who shared their views with us on how children in the care system become criminalised, and how we as professionals can work to prevent it. The full report is available here.

Young people’s experience

Young people told us about their experiences of being reported missing; of having the police called for minor incidents; and of being treated unfairly by the professionals around them. They also told us of the long-term impacts that this early criminalisation can have for some.

“Try and relate and understand. Don’t go full pelt, because that’s gonna make the child scared to come back. Then he’s gonna cause another escalation… So the scenario could have been dealt with a lot calmer in a different way. So just try and give a little bit of ‘give and take’ as well sort of thing. Everyone runs a few minutes late.”

 

“I was having issues at home and run away and they were really horrible to me and dragged me back without asking my reasons for going.”

 

“OK, there’s young people… they’re just struggling now as adults and can’t get jobs because they’ve had criminal records for things they’ve done in care, like smashing cups or breaking washing machines or like adolescent behaviour.”

What needs to change

The young people who spoke to us were clear about what needs to change. They talked about the need for trauma-informed responses, with professionals who really listen to the young people in their care, and take action to meet their needs.

They spoke about setting young people up to succeed, rather than assuming the worst; and many spoke about the need to empower care-experienced children – giving them control over their own situation.

“It’s just understanding the minds of each young person because everybody’s different… That’s my main thing is just get to know them, work with them, listen to them and let them help you support them.”

 

“Children bounce around and it affects their behaviour, they do not have the support they need to keep them out of crime, crime can be a way of them to express that they need the help.”

 

“OK, so how can we teach them to manage that behaviour? Because OK, you can’t just start throwing things if somebody has annoyed you. OK, so how do you know when you’re getting annoyed? What can you do before you get to that explosive? How to manage their 21 behaviours, but remember, not everybody manages everything the exact same way either. It’s about tailoring the support to each young person.”

Full report and toolkit

The full report detailing what young people told us is available here, and the toolkit for professionals in Wales is here.

Thank you

We would like to say a huge thank you to the organisations that helped us to speak to young people including Voices from Care Cyrmu and NYAS, and most importantly we’d like to thank all the young people who so generously gave their views.

The post Care-experienced young people’s voices: reducing criminalisation appeared first on Missing People.

Going missing can be a warning sign of serious harm in a person’s life. The reasons why people go missing are varied and complicated but can include:

• mental health issues.
• self-harm.
• exploitation.
• unhappiness or abuse at home.
• financial issues.

Statistics have indicated that young people are at significant risk of going missing: over half of all missing episodes relate to people aged 12-17 (54.9%). This is followed by those aged 18-39 (26.7% of all missing episodes).

Issues in the response

Despite the high numbers of young people going missing, recent publications have highlighted issues in the response for this group. The Knowledge Briefing ‘Bridging the gap: Transitional Safeguarding and the role of social work with adults’ introduced the concept of transitional safeguarding. The report ‘Transitional Safeguarding and Missing Young People’ found that professionals have identified gaps in how this works for young people who are repeatedly missing.

Our work supporting young people

At Missing People we know there is significant need amongst this age group. Approximately 20% of all contacts to our helpline are from young adults aged 18-25.

Through our SafeCall service, we support young people up to the age of 25. We know that exploitation, and the missing episodes this leads to, don’t stop when a child hits 18. We help to ensure that plans in place for reaching adulthood, and that support won’t disappear whilst still needed.

Despite these services, we are still limited in the support that can be provided for young adults. Often we see those we support reach a cliff-edge from other services who can only help until they’re 18.

What can be done to improve

At Missing People, we support more flexibility in the commissioning and delivery of services to continue help throughout this transition. We believe relationships are key to safeguarding, and to cut those off due to arbitrary timeframes can do significant damage. Young people may need support into adulthood, not to have services withdrawn. Finally, we know that communication and shared aims between services for children and services for adults are vital to provide continuity when supporting a young person.

We will keep supporting young adults through our work and campaign for a more holistic approach to transitional safeguarding for those at risk of missing.

The post Supporting young people as they transition to adulthood appeared first on Missing People.

This report concerns the response for young people who are regularly going missing as they approach and pass the age of 18.

What is the report about?

Going missing is often a warning sign that something is wrong in a child’s life. They may be:

• Experiencing harm at home.
• Struggling with their mental health.
• A victim of grooming and exploitation.
• Facing a range of other risks.

These harms do not go away when a child reaches adulthood as many will continue to go missing. In spite of this, much of the support they receive from professionals drops away.

We have surveyed professionals across the country to explore what is currently happening for young people as they transition to adulthood.

Recommendations from the report

This report sets out some recommendations for services to consider as a first step. These include:

• Local authorities should ensure children and adult services are working together as well as having the capacity to attend meetings for young people that fall within the other’s domain when beneficial.
• Local authorities should consider introducing Transitional Safeguarding Teams to provide specialist support to 16-25 year olds experiencing risk or harm. A young person who is identified as high-risk while missing or going missing repeatedly should then involve the team.
• Local partnerships should develop multi-agency protocols for the response to missing adults to ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear. Then this should be supported by groups who can ensure information sharing, shared responsibility and accountability, and problem solving any issues between agencies.
• Commissioners across the safeguarding sector should have flexibility in their commissioning expectations for services. This therefore allows them to provide support to young people as they pass the age of 18 if beneficial.
• Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and HMICFRS should explore working together to ensure that transitional safeguarding is included in inspection frameworks.

The post New report: Transitional safeguarding and missing young people appeared first on Missing People.

Some groups of children, including those looked after in the care system, are disproportionately likely to be reported missing. Children in care are twenty times more likely to be reported missing than the national average.

In 2021, over 10,000 looked after children went missing in more than 70,000 incidents.

In some cases, this is because looked after children may be at increased risk of harm. However, there are also concerns that sometimes they are being reported as missing inappropriately. Often due to misunderstanding of, or a lack of accountability in, different agencies roles and responsibilities.

At the same time, there is increasing evidence that police forces are refusing genuine missing reports. If this persists there are real risks that people will fall through the safety net.

It is vital that a balance is found, with better monitoring and oversight, to ensure the right approach to reporting and responding to missing person reports is put in place.

What are the negatives to over-reporting?

Reporting people missing when there are no genuine concerns about their safety, it can have a negative impact on their wellbeing and relationships. The Howard League found that over-reporting children as missing can lead to criminalisation, can damage children’s perceptions of the police, and can harm children’s relationships with their carers. These findings were supported by Missing People’s recent consultation with looked after children and young people in which children spoke about their frustration with being reported missing in circumstances where peers outside of the care system would not have been.

“It looks really bad when you’re at a friend’s and the police come, how is that normal?”

“Calling police is not giving young people a chance to cool off. Keep lines of communication open and do best to find them yourself and then call the police.”

“Remember being in care isn’t like being a normal teenager, so don’t expect us to be normal. Try and understand our reasons, sometimes you need to leave us alone, you need to listen to what we say when we aren’t happy and don’t blame us for not being able to cope. Don’t threaten my placement because I go missing.”

Inappropriate reporting can also have a huge impact on police resources. Police forces have shared their concerns about the high volume of missing person reports they receive. They highlight how this can negatively affect their ability to respond appropriately.

“Talk to me, get to know me, don’t judge me, understand why I might go missing and help me manage those feelings and situations before it gets out of hand. Young people go missing for a reason, try to understand that. When we go don’t be angry or make us feel bad.” 

What can happen if reports are refused?

Services across the country have increasingly encountered more examples of police refusing missing persons reports. There are very real concerns when the police refuse missing reports when there is genuine risk. We know that failure to report people as missing can lead to sexual and criminal exploitation going unnoticed. It can disproportionately impact people who go missing repeatedly who are often highly vulnerable. Ultimately, it can lead to serious harm happening to a person while no one is even looking for them.

This has happened in the past. Families would sometimes struggle to get the police to take their concerns seriously. Instead, they were told to come back after 24 or 48 hours had passed. More recently with inappropriate use of the ‘absent’ category.

There is also a risk that discriminatory judgements could be made against groups that are more regularly considered ‘not real missing’, or not given the same priority as others. For example people who are struggling with their mental health, or people from minoritised ethnic communities.

How do we find a balanced approach?

This issue is complicated. By the very nature of someone being away, it is hard for us to make judgements about what risk they are facing and whether they are ‘missing’. If someone is out of our sight we don’t automatically consider them as such. So when do we need to start worrying?

There is no simple answer to preventing inappropriate reporting, or to ensuring that the police never miss responding appropriately to a report where there are genuine reasons for concern. However, we do think there are some ways to begin working towards this.

Earlier this year we carried out a survey with professionals who have experienced reporting someone missing, and with a small number of people who have reported a family member missing.

We asked about their experiences of reporting, and what needs to change to improve the response.

Key recommendations that came from the responses included:

• When taking a missing report, the police should listen to the concerns of the reporting person. They should acknowledge that the reporting person knows the child. If they are worried, there is probably good reason to be.
• Local partnerships should focus on building multi-agency working to address issues of inappropriate reporting or refusals of reports. Conversations about what is and isn’t appropriate reporting should happen in multi-agency meetings in a positive way, not at the point of reporting when a person’s safety could be at risk.
• Local partnerships should monitor perceived inappropriate reporting, and refusals of reports, to help both the police and the people making the reports to address the issue constructively.
• Respect is vital in all communications – people should not feel dismissed, or face undue pressure in their role.

You can read more about the survey responses and findings here.

We will be campaigning for improvements in monitoring, as well as more oversight to ensure all partners are playing their part. If you work in any role across local safeguarding partnerships we urge you to consider how you can make improvements in your area.

Training

If you are a professional who works with looked after children who may be at risk of going missing, we would recommend completing our short training course: Missing from Care E-Training.

The course aims to equip carers and professionals to:

• Better support children at risk of going missing
• Reduce inappropriate reporting.
• Better communicate with children on their return from missing
• Improve relationships with children missing from care.

The training is based on the experiences, stories and views of care-experienced young people who have been missing themselves. It uses interactive content and tasks to build the participants knowledge and confidence in effective responses.

The training is just £15 per person and you can contact consultancy@missingpeople.org.uk if you want to know more about the course or to book on.

The post Reporting a child or young person as missing: what does a balanced approach look like? appeared first on Missing People.

Missing People recently surveyed professionals and a small number of families about their experiences when they reported someone as missing to the police.

When a person goes missing their loved ones or the professionals responsible for their care should report them as missing to the police. An investigation can then be carried out to ensure their safe return. However, there is increasing understanding of the negative impacts that inappropriately reporting someone as missing can have.

In some cases, people may be reported missing as part of ‘company policy’ in a care or healthcare setting, or as a disciplinary response rather than because of genuine concerns about their safety. This can have a negative impact on the person’s well-being. It can also negatively impact their relationships with professionals responsible for their care and the police.

However, frustration within police forces at this ‘over-reporting’ can risk leading to refusals to accept legitimate missing reports, or encouraging ‘under-reporting’. This has very significant consequences. It can mean people who are vulnerable and at risk of harm are unlooked for and left at risk.

We must find a way to walk the fine line between over and under-reporting. We need to ensure that every incident is reported and actioned when a child or adult is at risk. While also focusing much more on prevention and appropriate non-police interventions for people at risk of going missing.

This survey and subsequent report aim to understand what is happening nationally: whether there are often disagreements about roles and responsibilities and whether people are satisfied with the police response.

Key findings

Findings from the survey show that the majority have had a positive experience when reporting someone as missing to the police. However, there are still improvements that can be made:

• When taking a missing report, the police should listen to the concerns of the reporting person.
• Local partnerships should focus on building multi-agency working to address issues of inappropriate reporting or refusals of reports.
• Local partnerships should monitor perceived inappropriate reporting, and refusals of reports, to help both the police and the people making the reports to address the issue constructively.
• Respect is vital in all communications.

Download the full report

The post New report: Experiences of reporting a child or adult missing to the police appeared first on Missing People.

Our Business Development Team delivers high-quality workshops and training courses to multi-agency professionals. This includes police, education, NHS, Local Authorities, and care home providers. They upskill professionals in how to provide the best possible response when someone disappears. Recently, they developed new training on Person Centred Responses to Missing People for police.

The development of this training was funded by the Home Office and the content was reviewed by the National Police Chief’s Council, UK Missing Person’s Unit, and Vulnerability Knowledge & Practice Programme. The training is for Police staff who respond to missing people, children, or adults.

People affected by missing and family members with a missing loved one co-developed and were central to the training. They discussed how their experience affected their mental and physical health and their experiences of dealing with police. Those affected also shared what police can and should be improve.

Two brave family members also joined an interactive Q&A panel and police forces were given top tips about how families would like to be communicated with.

Discussing the training, delegates highlighted:

“The family members telling their side of things makes it ‘real'”

“Hearing the lived experience – it is difficult to listen to, however, this is where police can learn the most. The training created an environment where people have time to think and process, away from the demands of daily work. This offers an opportunity to refocus and take a step back to see the impact that missing has and how important it is that we get it right from the beginning and throughout.”

Why is this training needed?

This training was developed in response to Impact of Police Cuts on Missing Person Investigations (2021) by Mark Greenhalgh and Dr Karen Shalev Greene. This report recommends establishing a rolling programme of training or inputs that highlight the need for police to treat missing ‘cases’ individually.

The research which involved almost 400 officers found that:

• 1 in 5 officers (20%) involved in missing persons cases have not had any training in this area
• Almost 75% of officers stated they would benefit from more training

Impact on Policing

• Strategic review of policing in England & Wales (March 2022)
• Police devote upwards of three million investigation hours per year to missing persons reports (England & Wales)
• The equivalent of 1,562 full time police officers per year
• Estimated annual cost of between £394m and £509m

The discussions in the break-out sessions in the training generate engagement and scenarios encourage attendees to think how they could change their responses to make them more person centred. Our team share good practice examples from across the country and ask delegates to pledge what they will commit to change.

All of our training promotes the free services provided by Missing People and how agencies can use and refer to us, so that we can be a lifeline when someone disappears.

One delegate said “I will ensure that I sign post them to yourselves as I was not aware of these other services that were available”.

Police feedback

We are really proud of the consistently positive feedback we receive from our delegates. Thus, highlighting why more professionals should attend this training and that there is a real need. When asked, those who attended shared the following feedback:

What would you say to another force who is considering attending this training?

“Do it. Sometimes in the rush of having to attend the vast volume of jobs we have we forget how we would feel in these circumstances. Taking a step back just emphasises how our Police involvement impacts peoples’ everyday lives. Just being able comfort families’ members in those difficult times means a lot to them.”

“It’s a fantastic opportunity and everyone working with missing people and their families should make time to attend.”

What will you do differently in your work with missing children and adults as a result of attending today’s training?

“Keep the person at the heart of everything we do.”

“After listening to families, I will actively change my language for clarity when giving updates and information.”

“Take into account the family perspective when someone is missing. Try to give more information, more frequently so the family can be kept updated with developments.”

Buy a ticket

You can purchase tickets for this training via the eventbrite link below:

This training can be also purchased as a bespoke package for individual police forces for up to 40 attendees per session for £795.00.

Contact us

If you are interested in finding out more about this training or any of our other events for professionals, please email consultancy@missingpeople.org.uk or click the button below to find out more!

The post New Training on Person Centred Responses to Missing People appeared first on Missing People.

Tuesday 14^th June 2022, 09:30 – 13:00

Join TODAY and get our discounted price of £50 (plus £4.49 registering fee)

(Usually RRP £69)

With support from the Home Office, NPCC and NCA UKMPU, we have developed a brand new package of training designed for police officers working with missing children, adults and their families.

This training has been developed to help police forces continually improve their responses to people who are missing their loved ones. You can expect to hear these experiences throughout this session directly from these individuals.

Join us for interaction, discussion and grounding moments.

Feedback from a police delegate

“Sometimes in the rush of having to attend the vast volume of jobs we have we forget how we would feel in these circumstances. Taking a step back just emphasises how our Police involvement impacts people’s everyday lives and just being able comfort family members in those difficult times means a lot to them”.

Feedback from a police delegate

“Make it a priority”

Agenda

This 3.5-hour session is designed to inform and upskill professionals through the following agenda:

• Working effectively with and supporting the missing persons’ family – this has been developed in partnership with families with lived experience
• Why people go missing – push and pull factors including exploitation, living in care, mental health, and dementia and how these factors link to risk and behaviour
• Successful management of the return of a missing person in partnership with other agencies to prevent future missing incidents
• Missing People’s services – how we can support police investigations
• A unique opportunity to hear from 2 families with an interactive Q&A panel.

Who should attend?

This virtual session has been designed for police officers and staff working with missing people and their families

Purchase

£50 plus registering fee.

To buy your ticket, please click the link below.

Contact

If you have any questions about this training, please contact consultancy@missingpeople.org.uk

Find out more about our consultancy and training services here.

The post Person Centred Responses to Missing appeared first on Missing People.