Issue - meetings

The following officers were in attendance for this item:

- Barbara Peacock Executive Director (People)

- Philip Segurola, Interim Director, Early Help and Children’s Social Care

The Interim Director of Early Help and Children’s Social Care gave an overview of the statistics on missing children and percentage of Return Home Interviews (RHIs) carried out from April 2017 onwards. He stated that the performance of completed RHIs was improving but still needed to improve considerably.

Members were advised that additional staffing had been recruited to carry out RHIs. Their background is in improving family resilience and their focus is on completing these interviews with high risk adolescents on the edge of care.  Staff are holding daily meetings to discuss missing children and agree ways of tackling the issues causing these absences.  Officers added that the organisation commissioned to organise out of borough placements for children in care would be asked to organise RHIs for any such young person going missing, within 72 hours of their return home.

Members welcomed the report. However, they asked for future reports on RHIs to provide not only percentages, but also numbers of RHIs completed.

Asked about the age of children and young people going missing, officers explained that the vast majority were adolescents, with a significant number in the 15-16 year age band.

Members expressed concerns about the possibility of young girls going missing because they were being abused sexually at home. Officers concurred that home circumstances could be the cause of young people going missing. The job of staff carrying out RHIs was to develop a good rapport with the young person being interviewed so that this information could be drawn out of them and solutions developed to tackle abuse.

Asked about the motivation of young people going missing, officers stated that they did so for a wide variety of reasons. One particularly worrying trend, called “county lines”, is that of young people being groomed to sell drugs a considerable distance away from their home town, making it very difficult for local services to combat this practice. Members were also advised of a rise in the number of girls being recruited to get involved in county lines.

Members highlighted the fact that there existed specialist charities focusing on providing support to children in care. Officers concurred, citing” Safer in London” among other voluntary sector organisations carrying out such work.

Officers observed that there was no national benchmark for RHIs but stated that they were committed to raising the percentage of RHIs to 50% of missing episodes.

Members heard that “Achieving for Children”, an organisation working in Kingston and Richmond, usually achieved a 60-65% response rate, which members challenged the council to aspire to. Officers were asked whether they used a range of different ways of contacting young people to conduct RHIs, such as Skype calls. Officers replied that face to face contact was preferable but that officers were flexible in their approach to young people coming back from a missing episode.

It was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45