Shocking levels of kids in care repeatedly going MISSING in South Yorkshire

Authorities in South Yorkshire are being accused of failing to protect children in their care who repeatedly go missing.

An investigation by Hallam found one in 10 in care in our country have disappeared.

In Sheffield the figure is one in six, which is the highest in the region – and each child went missing an average of seven times each.

The Children's Society is calling on local authorities to take action, warning children in care are more at risk of being exploited:

“There’s lots of evidence of criminal gangs and adults who want to sexually exploit children actively targeting children in care because they’re so vulnerable,” says policy manager Richard Crellin.

“They can be groomed through gifts or making them think that they really care about them. They can manipulate them into doing all sorts of things.

“Police forces need to respond more sensitively to these young people who aren’t just trouble makers. Ultimately however the buck stops with the local authority. They are this child’s parent and they must do more.”

Richard thinks councils should make more of an effort to ask young people why they ran away, listen to their concerns and actively respond to them.

“It’s really concerning that 10 per cent of the children who are in care in England are going missing,” he added.

“It’s not just a one-off that happens occasionally, it’s something that is repeated for these young people. It is disappointing that more action hasn’t been taken to bring these figures down.”

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion told Hallam she’s ‘deeply concerned’ by the figures, and wants more action from the government to help tackle the problem.

She’s concerned that in some areas, budget cuts have led to vulnerable children being sent to private care homes miles away from their support network:

“A lot of local authorities can no longer afford to maintain their own care homes,” she says.

“So what we’re seeing is children going into private care homes. Because of the demand they tend not go into their own locality. So what we’re getting now is children being taken away from their broader support systems.”

Both she and the Children’s Society have also raised concerns about the lack of national guidance on dealing with missing children. The government has previously promised to bring in a national register of missing children so that we have better data and background information on each child – but this has repeatedly been delayed.

“Each child that goes missing is meant to have a return to home interview,” says Sarah.

“But there isn’t a national formula for how those interviews should take place or what happens to that information. So if a child is taken out of their home region into a different local authority, the local authority has got no background on that child unless they proactively dig for it.”

In a statement, Doncaster Children's Trust told us it’s committed to protecting and safeguarding children in care.

Whilst the Barnsley Safeguarding Children’s Board says it works with other agencies to identify children at risk of harm and work to reduce and prevent further missing episodes.