“These statistics aren’t a surprise to me. That doesn’t mean they should be ignored.
“I was separated from my siblings when I was taken into care. I saw it as my job to protect them. So reports would say I was running away but that isn’t how I would categorise it. I was running to my brothers and sisters, because there was no meaningful plan and no attempt to keep us connected by those looking after us. I had to make sure they were alright.
“I think that the mix of adult responsibility that I had, and the assumptions that the police had after routinely being called on to deal with children running away from care, meant that when I ran away at 15, an officer that I reached out to completely missed my vulnerability.
“Children in care often come from homes with immense challenges into a broken system that is unequipped to support them. It’s understandable to me that when a child’s choice is between a controlling environment where even their general mood is written down in a book and their family home, no matter how difficult things were, they would seek home.”
Children in Care: Missing People
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2nd May 2019
Figures obtained by the Scottish Conservatives show Police Scotland recorded 1,935 cases of children in care being reported as missing in 2018.
Conservative MSP Maurice Golden said:
In response to these figures Who Cares? Scotland Chief Executive Duncan Dunlop said,
Who Cares? Scotland Board Member Lee Davidson said,
Amy-Beth Miah, a member of Who Cares? Scotland Collective of Care Experienced people said,
For more information on this story, please contact our Public Affairs Team at 0141 226 4441.
Read more about research Who Cares? Scotland has carried with Care Experienced people on this issue.
Notes:
[1] The Howard League, Ending the Criminalisation of children in residential care, 2017 https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Ending-the-criminalisation-of-children-in-residential-care-Briefing-two.pdf
Scottish Experiences of children criminalised in residential care https://howardleague.org/blog/scottish-experiences-of-children-criminalised-in-residential-care/
[2] CYCJ, Evaluation of Barnardo’s Safer Choices Missing Service
https://cycj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Safer-Choices-Evaluation.pdf
[3] Who Cares? Scotland Missing People Strategy
https://www.whocaresscotland.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/WCS-response-to-consultation-on-the-Missing-People-Strategy-Nov-16.pdf
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