Reflecting on a decade of return home interviews

Here, she reflects on 10 years of conducting these essential assessments and the impact young peoples’ mental health is having on missing incidents.

Catch22 delivers services in the UK which support children and young people at risk of exploitation. This support involves working with children, young people, their families and guardians, and with safeguarding professionals. As part of these services, Catch22 responds to incidences of children going missing – Catch22 does this because missing incidences are so often a warning sign of potential exploitation or grooming.

On every occasion a child goes missing, statutory guidance in England states that the child should be offered an independent Return Home Interview (RHI) when they return home. This must be conducted by someone who is not involved in directly caring for the child or young person at the time of the missing incident – it is at this point when Catch22 often steps in, initially by conducting one of these RHIs.