Q&A about running away from home with experts Andy McCullough & Charlie Hedges. Aviva will donate £2 to charity Railway Children for every post - CLOSED

[RachelMumsnet]

You may have seen last month that the charity Railway Children is working with Aviva to provide help and support to children who have run away from home, or are at risk of doing so. It's estimated that one child runs away from home or care every five minutes in the UK. They've helped us to build some information on the reasons why children run away and how to spot the warning signs.

We were astounded by your response, with many of you sharing very personal stories and experiences. So many people have been touched by this issue and by sharing your thoughts, you have already helped us raise £18,422 for Railway Children.

Your comments have also raised lots of questions, so to answer everything and anything you'd like to ask - but never previously knew who to go to - about the topic of running away from home, we have invited the following experts to answer your questions:

· Andy McCullough Head of UK Policy & Public Affairs at Railway Children
· Charlie Hedges from CEOP, an organisation that deals with child exploitation and online protection

For every (proper & real!) question submitted, Aviva will donate £2 to Railway Children. You can post a maximum of three questions on the thread. Aviva will donate up to £100,000 by the end of 2012 as part of the Mumsnet campaign.

£2 will also be donated for everyone who 'likes' and recommends this thread on Facebook (by clicking 'Recommend' at the top) and if you 'like' any of the articles here

Do please join in, have your questions answered and help that money stack up!

Send your questions for the experts before Sunday 25th November and we'll link to their answers to up to 20 questions from this page on Monday 10th December.

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?

@flow4

:) Great! Nice one, Aviva!

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

Hello, I'm not RachelMumsnet but I do know the answer: yes, one question per post please.

But you can post up to three times (so 3 x £2 raised from Aviva for the Railway Children )

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?

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

What is the definition of a Runaway?