So it's good to see a national charity pitching in on their behalf. Railway Children (great name incidentally) has called on the coalition government to review youth services in a bid to protect this most marginalised and hard-to-reach group.
The call came as part of the recent National Family Week. The charity backed it with research findings that showed many at-risk children found gang membership was the closest they could get to a sense of family and protection.
The study of 103 children aged under 16, who had been detached from parents or carers for long periods of time, listed deprivation, family breakdown, the lack of positive role models, school exclusion and the need for protection on the streets among the many reasons why young runaways join gangs.
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