Agenda item

Missing Children Annual Report 2024-25

Meeting of Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Tuesday, 2 December 2025 6.30pm (Item 501.)

This report provides an overview of Medway’s Children Services response to children who go missing from home and care. It examines data and practice themes for the period April 2024 to March 2025, highlighting patterns, challenges, and areas for development. The analysis includes quantitative data on missing episodes, qualitative reflections from practitioners, and multi-agency contributions, with a focus on safeguarding outcomes and service improvements.

Minutes:

Discussion:

The Committee received a report which detailed the response to children who go missing from home and care. Officers highlighted the data, practice themes and response to learning. The Committee was informed that 86% of Return Home Interviews (RHIs) took place within 72hrs and there were many factors attributed to why children went missing or went missing frequently. Engagement with young people could often be difficult and all data captured were analysed and shared in reporting. The Key priorities for 2025/26 was that all children to be offered RHIs regardless of where they were placed and for increased collaboration with the commissioning team regarding push factors for why children went missing, such as not being in education, to assist with building in preventative measures.

Members then raised several questions and comments:

Data - in response to a question on whether the figures presented were just for Medway children or whether it included children placed in Medway, the Committee learnt that the data presented was for Medway children both living in and placed outside of Medway. Local Authorities were responsible for their own children regardless of where they were placed.

Measure of success- it was further commented that the report referenced 150 episodes of young people going missing, one of the targets was prevention of reoccurrence and it was asked what the percentage of reoccurrence was and success rate of prevention of recurrence. The Committee was informed that it was difficult to quantify and measure success of re occurrence as missing episodes occurred for various reasons, often it was a cry for help and occurred during difficult periods of a young person’s life. What was key was identifying what the driver was by focusing on, engaging and building relationships with young people. The reasons for a young person being missing was difficult to report on in terms of percentages as a young person may report a different reason for the missing episode whilst a carer parent or teacher may report it as a different reason. This however was a complexity that officers would undertake to focus on in the coming year.

The Committee was also informed that the response to any child missing was consistent regardless of whether it was a child in care or not. When a missing episode occurred, the young person would be found by the police and would have already spoken to a professional, asking them to then go over everything again with another professional could often make engagement difficult. There were three Return Home Interviewers in post, they were independent, and they worked on the basis of building relationships with young persons and ensuring the understood the purpose of the interview.

Return home interviewers -it was asked if it would be beneficial for the Return Home Interviewer to be present when a young person was initially interviewed by the police once found and the officer said that they were trying to get to a place where a young person did not have to repeat their story to multiple professionals. This was often difficult as when a young person was found the police would speak to them in the first instance.

Data trend - in response to a comment that there appeared to be a trend in the data on ethnicity of young people that went missing and it was asked what could be done to address this, officers said that this would be taken forward as part of a review on future reporting. It was also requested that future reports included details of percentage of children with SEND that went missing as well as that of other disadvantaged groups.

Members on the Committee commented on the importance of building relationships with young people in the community and promoting oneself as trusted adults through various interactions with young people. There must be increased focus on creating safe spaces for young people. It was vital that young people had access to support networks and the Committee learned that there were places of safety promoted by child centred policing teams, with officers linked across all schools in Medway.

Outreach - in response to a question on what was being done to reach out to young people in terms of youth clubs, the Committee was informed that there were many forward facing youth service interactions with young people. There was a focus on being present where young people typically were, through the satellite project and mobile youth bus. Medway Youth Service had a strong social media presence which was used for outreach. There was also access for young people to many online resources with information on smoking, substance abuse and mental health support. Campaigns such as roadshows took place across schools and there were online resources for schools to deliver as part of their Personal, Social, Health and Economic curriculum on factors that could contribute to missing episodes.