Charity seeks action on rise in school runaways

The Lessons to Learn report by The Children’s Society explores the links between running away and school absence, and is based on interviews with practitioners, secondary-school-age children who have previously run away and existing research. 

It argues that schools and local safeguarding children boards must take responsibility for training all children's services staff in how to recognise signs related to running away and school absence.

Natalie Williams, policy officer at the Children’s Society, said services must intervene earlier to support children. She added that the charity is experiencing a rise in referrals made by schools to its runaway services. But these referrals are often made too late.

“Often when we get a referral, the problem has gone quite far along and the situation has escalated to a difficult point,” she said. “If you can intervene when the young person is starting to show a few problems, then the intervention you do might be more effective.”

The report meanwhile urges schools and local authorities to maintain funding for educational welfare and behaviour support teams, which have been decimated across the country as a result of council budget cuts.

“Practitioners raised the problem of cuts impacting on these teams in terms of identifying young people early who might need support,” said Williams. “Whereas teachers are busy teaching, those teams are the ones that will work with young people once they’ve been identified as being absent.”

The charity wants the recommendations of the report to feed into the government’s revised statutory guidance on identifying children not receiving a suitable education.

The charity hopes the recommendations will also encourage teachers to do more to prevent the problem, as a case study of one young person, who was suffering abuse at home, highlights.

“I went from being a hard-working, well-behaved pupil who never got told off to one who was a mess and always being pulled up for something. I mean, did they [school staff] never wonder why I was so different?” she said.

According to Children’s Society research from 2011, 100,000 children run away from home or care in the UK every year.