Mumsnet Talk

I'm really excited about this campaign, and really pleased to see a company like Aviva involved in this, and pledging to donate £2 for every time someone gets involved in a campaign. What better way to raise awareness really and get people talking, when there's a quick and easy way for people to feel they've made a contribution and helped.

Anyway, my first question is to Andy: considering that there are a huge number of wide ranging reasons that a child might run away, there can be no 'one size fits all' approach to dealing with the issue of child/teen runaways and you must feel as though there's a million and one things that the government could do to help. What are the main solutions you're trying to lobby the government with at the moment? Does it focus more on prevention, or is more about support and rehabilitation once a child has run away? If a child has a challenging background, in some ways it might be easier to anticipate that they might consider running away, but it must be hard to anticipate it if a child appears to be from a nice cosy middle class perfect world. But I could be completely wrong!

My second question is for Charlie: as your organisation deals with child protection and online protection, what connection is there to teenagers/children running away and their online activities. What can be done to help parents? It's hard to know what your teens are doing online when people are constantly connected to the internet now through their phones, tablet computers, laptops, etc. You want to balance protecting your teen, and also giving them the freedom to feel as though you trust them.

Flow4 well done for spotting that & MNHQ for clarifying the details.

Thank you Aviva for being generous.

That is incredibly generous odf Aviva and a real chance for Mumnsnetters to get together and make this thread huge.

One of my children threatens to run away when angry. How do I know if he means it?

Where do children who run away go?

Excellent. I was one of the three in one posters. Thanks Aviva!

I'd like to know how many children who do 'runaway' are from care. How many from childrens homes and how many from foster parents?

A

Great! Nice one, Aviva!

RachelMumsnet can you just confirm please: should people ask just ONE question per post from now on?

Are the Railway Children involved with or aware of the issue of trafficked children going missing from care (particularly vulnerable Vietnamese kids)?

If so, how do you propose to address the shoddy treatment they get in comparison to other LAC/ non-migrant children? Is there anything those of us working in related fields can do to help?

I've had my 3 questions, so I'm just bumping

Oops, I didn't need to bump, did I, cos this thread is 'pinned' to the top of the board, isn't it?

How can children be encouraged to disclose if they think a friend us intending to run away?

Would it be better to ensure secondary age children know about safe places (where they exist) to give them space without them being at risk from gangs/pimps etc?

If one of my children came home with a friend who says they have 'run away from home' what should I do? Guess it depends on all sorts of issues like the age, family circumstances (which I may or may not know about) etc, but as a caring adult who is concerned for the child and their family, what should I do? Assume I would try and find out what the problem is first, but must I tell the parents immediately? What about the child wishes if they don't want me to contact their parents?

Is there extra support for LGBT runaways?

How can we ensure that the reasons for running away are fixed before returning children?

How do you find a child who has run away?

if a child subject to a custody dispute runs away, how is that handled by the family court?

If a child/young person has declared that they have been tempted to run away what help/support can they be offered currently?

Can they access any help/support themselves or can their parent/carer assist them in accessing any help/support?

Should we be teaching children/young people how to keep themselves safe if they do run away?

What exactly do the police do when a child is reported missing? And what other agencies are involved?

My cousin and I "ran away" as teenagers

I have and had a loving and happy family life, but a rubbish boyfriend and complicated peer group of friends.

To this day I couldn't really justify why we did it. We were immature, naive and perhaps attention seeking?

We didn't get far as a few hours later trying to catch a train the station staff called the police in to fetch us, thank god!

Obviously we were lucky and I'm not saying that we were typical of most runaways, the ones with real problems to escape from, but what is the definition of a runaway? Were we it, and if so what proportion of runaways are merely naive teenagers seeking solutions to angst?

£4 please in the pot?

Is there any way to distinguish between kids who are running away because their home life is intolerable, and those who are running away because they are rebelling against reasonable parental rules?

They need very different treatment, imo.

I would like to see help in place for the parents of "habitual runaways", rather than those parents left to cope alone.

What happens to children between the awkward ages of 16 and 18, when they are too old for child services, but aren't actually adults.

And what about vulnerable 18 year olds? My son has AS - but the minute he turned 18 I lost all rights to have any input into what he does. I wasn't even notified the last time he was arrested

When is a child who leaves home and goes to a relatives or friends house classed as a 'Runaway'?