Missing Children - Home, Care and Education

It is known that children who go missing are at risk of suffering significant harm and there are specific risks around children running away and the risk or criminal or sexual exploitation.

Police define 'missing' and 'absent' in relation to children and adults as:

anyone whose whereabouts cannot be established will be considered as missing until located, and their well-being or otherwise confirmed.  All reports of missing people sit within a continuum of risk from 'no apparent risk (absent)' through to high-risk cases that require immediate, intensive action.

The below DSP guidance provides details of what you need to do if you have concerns.

DSP Procedure and Practice Guidance - Children and Families who go missing from Home, Care and Education [PDF Document]

Additional Statutory Guidance.

GOV.UK - Statutory Guidance on children who run away or go missing from home or care [external link]

Philomena Protocol

The protocol is a Durham Constabulary initiative to help locate and safely
return a young person who is missing from a residential home/foster care as
quickly as possible when they are missing. The basis of the scheme is for vital information about the young person to be recorded on a form which can be used to locate them quickly. The form should then be stored safely either in electronic format or a printed version. The Police will then ask for the form, or the information recorded on the form, in the event of a child going missing. 

See flyer for more information.

See also Philomena Protocol Training Presentation for further information [Powerpoint]