A quarter of trafficked children who were in the care of LA in the UK last year go missing

[Neurotrash]

Appalling.

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/dec/15/uk-care-system-failing-trafficked-children-lost-and-missing?CMP=fb_gu

They run away, it is terrifying.

and very sad

Do they go back to what they know? like a security blanket

Did you read the article?

And that's my polite reply.

I'm bemused by the way this thread has already gone between the OP and the single respondent.

However, my view: it's shocking and very worrying. I think social services are massively overburdened, but an awful lot more needs to be done - by police also - to help these children and young people.

Having said that, the lack of interest in the children involved in the Telford, Rotherham, etc grooming cases suggests nothing much is going to change in a hurry.

I'm personally sickened that anyone can allude to being trafficked, used a a slave, beaten and worse as a 'security blanket'.

GaryBaldbiscuit No they don't go back voluntarily because of any security blanket effect; they aren't believed by social workers and their families are threatened by the traffickers.

of you know this do you upstart
if you all know so much, sort it out

Quite often social workers go to collect them, place them in a foster home and then they go missing within 24 hours. Not sure what can be done to prevent that?

I expect a lot of it is different reasons case by case so blanket policies will be difficult but 'not believing' seems to be a common theme.

Gary your misogyny is showing.

I think it’s dreadful and there clearly isn’t the right support for these children. I think it’s probably down to the wider culture of how refugees and asylum seekers are treated in this country - often locked up for huge amounts of time in detention centres. It suits social services and the LA to insist they are adults as they are then not responsible for them. Just another horrible step in an already horrific journey for these children, proving to them that nobody really cares.

A high percentage were British I noticed.

Mysogny? Christ, where do you get that impression, quite frankly bizarre, as was deleting my post, odd

I will leave you to your erm views

I don't think Gary is necessarily mysogenistic

Having grown up in care I would have posted that as my first response if I hadn't read the link. I ran away all the time and there's nothing anyone did to stop me. I somehow wasn't groomed or abused (well I was but in the home rather than when I ran away) and tons of the girls I was with were victims of CSE though back then everyone called it child prostitution and bad life choices

But this talks about refugees who go missing from care and aren't believed in the first place...

The system is so broken that I'm hardly surprised they're now trying to tell refugees they're too old for help. It would be convenient for a very overloaded stressed out social worker who's another 50 urgent potential baby p scenario cases if they could get one case off their hands

Greater powers imo need to be given to social workers and staff, and the police to be able to bring kids home when they run away or have gone missing... all they do if they find you and you've done it enough is lock you up in a secure unit

Not even sure how many secure units still exist... but you didn't go home because you knew that was where you'd be going in many cases and you didn't fancy what is essentially prison for kids for 6 months plus

Everything is really expensive in care... companies charge social services extortionate amounts because they can - they might take someone difficult to place, know ss have to pay and charge 3 times as much as any other placement. I know this because I worked for one such place and it was disgusting how they extracted money from a stretched service beyond what was reasonable for placements.

I think at this point, charities are going to have to help... I know the company I worked for sent a kid to the dentist which I believe was to confirm her age and she moved on soon after the trip. Although in that case she looked very young and was telling us that she was older all along

Also in the case of British kids - it was often far easier for girls I lived with to return to their "boyfriends" who I know now as an adult were trafficking them. You don't get love in care and I can see why many confused their "boyfriends" as being preferable over going to a secure unit miles away from anyone you knew whilst they threatened to do things to your family. People have this idea that traffickers are only horrible... yes they are vile exploiters but if you've had a crap start where it's not that wierd to be told you have to do stuff that you shouldn't and you're getting more "love" or money or whatever than before... its a false choice many kids make. Hopefully they will change the way things are somehow soon to make it preferable to remain in your placement and feel actually protected by doing so.

I know first hand that private settings can charge an arm and a leg as I was involved in a local care home a few years back. They took the kids at the very end of the line who had failed in every other care situation. When you consider a foster carer is paid £250-£500 per child depending on needs, this company charged £5k a week per kid and even managed to extract 7k a week for a very troubled teen that was resident there. But that child needed 3 staff with them at all times and had form for extreme violence......still not sure 7k was a suitable price tag though. After almost a year he went into a secure unit for the long term.

It is heart breaking and inconceivable that children and young people can go missing and nobody knows or seems to give a shit :(

I think most of the time everyone knows... there just isn't the money or the powers to return them

Some staff gave a shit. I certainly lost sleep myself when I worked in one over kids and spent my own time looking for one client knowing exactly which house she was in and trying to persuade her to come back. It didn't matter how many times I told people though - there was always the but we can't do anything line and warnings that I was overstepping and being unprofessional by going to see her when I wasn't insured for anything that might happen as a result.

Teenagers are the last of children's services priorities. But not necessarily because nobody cares... mainly there isn't the money or power. Teenagers in terms of risks in a stressed overloaded undertrained social workers case load... aren't the top of the list. They will probably live through it compared to a 3 year old child they know is being battered at home and want to get to court to remove

Blogpost from Lisa Muggeridge. It's about street grooming rather than trafficked children, but it deals with the cost of Out Of Authority placements and the erosion of Children's Services, both of which are applicable to trafficked children:

idgeofreason.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/how-to-demonstrate-the-indifference-to-street-grooming-is-not-a-race-issue/

I hope someone listens to Lisa. This is what a lot of the girls have been saying for years. Especially those of us who decided to go back and work in it to try and make a difference

But along comes Tommy and plays right into the narrative you are meant to take away by the media. I'm sure that's organised manipulation between him and some people in power.

I remember nobody liking me as an out of control teen where I lived, I had a newspaper article written about me where the locals were assured everything would calm down now as I had been kicked out. Obviously they didn't print my name but the details were clear enough to know it was me.

The actual truth was I had been raped in the home and told to leave and dumped in a b&b for telling anyone it had happened. I was homeless within a week as they didn't want to pay for that either. Had the truth been known- they'd have had to move several other placements on not just me.

I was fortunate... I got involved with the right people after that who made more difference in a few months. The biggest help in my life was an unpaid volunteer. But the red tape being now cut by me turning 16 soon after being kicked out and being homeless as opposed to 15 meant she could do things to help without getting into serious trouble herself. I still laugh now to myself when I think I went from being not allowed to use a knife in case I cut myself in the kitchen to being completely left to fend for myself within a week, not even old enough to apply for benefits without a social worker there to sign it off!

Will have to name change again soon as anyone who was in the home who's still alive will know who I am!

I am so sorry that happened to you. Thanks for sharing it because the unpalatable truth is that it's not an uncommon story.

No that's the rediculous thing - some of us can't really be arsed sharing our stories because they're no bigger than the people we lived with. And I always feel a bit guilty for it knowing that far worse was happening at the same time to others who aren't actually alive or are in prison etc now or simply haven't spoken out. I could tell far worse things but they aren't mine to tell and I would identify people who clearly don't want that yet if I did

Yes. The shocking thing is not that it happened. It's that it's so mundane and common and the reaction to it is to turn a blind eye wherever and whenever possible.