Bringing hope to vulnerable young
or sense of being somewhere else,” Ms Buchanan said.
“It might drive them to seek acknowledgment and a sense of belonging in some very unsafe and unsavoury situations.”
Ms Buchanan said there were “constant pressures” to try to find the right resources to protect children and support them in care.
“The impact of children going missing from care, getting caught up in sexual exploitation … is clearly an impact we should not accept,” she said.
UNIVERSITY of Melbourne Department of Social Work researcher Gemma McKinnon said children in care were particularly vulnerable to exploitation because they lacked stable adults in their lives to turn to for support.
Dr McKinnon said violence in the house, not getting along with carers and other unsettling factors often pushed children to leave the care home and seek the comfort of another person.
Determined perpetrators exploited these vulnerabilities by grooming children, offering them drugs or affection, Dr McKinnon said.
Sometimes those offenders could even rent hotel rooms or provide the child with an alternative place to live.
“The thing with these adult perpetrators of child exploitation is that really do prey on vulnerability and sometimes victims can actually think that they are in loving relationships or in boyfriend or girlfriendtype relationships,” she said.
Dr McKinnon said there was a cohort of perpetrators making “conscious decisions” to groom children in care because they were less likely to expose abuse.
“The biggest red flag is young people going missing from a house and when they go missing for periods of time … whenever that happens that’s a red flag for sexual exploitation,” Dr McKinnon said.
Under State Government procedures, when a young person leaves their home without approval, consideration is given to whether a missing person’s report is filed or if media attention is required.
Child Protection Minister Luke Donnellan said young people in residential care often had very complex backgrounds.
“With a history of trauma and abuse, staying settled in their residential home can often prove difficult and they may choose to leave the home without approval — this may be for a short period of hours, or for a longer period of time,” he said.
Government- employed sexual exploitation practice leaders have a register shared with police to identify persons of interest and to pursue legal action against people posing a risk of sexual exploitation to children and young people.
POLICE in Geelong are having some success with young vulnerable people. Sgt Johnson said in recent years officers had focused on developing positive relationships with young children in care by meeting them regularly and warning of the dangers of exploitation and risks of drug use.
By building trust with young people, they have had some success stories.
Sgt Johnson speaks of a teen girl who had been in care for 18 months and would regularly go missing at night.
“Over the last few months, it’s like a light switch has turned on in her life,” he said.
Police have linked her into services and the teen now has a job at a coffee shop and is going to school.
The Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare CEO Deb Tsorbaris said care workers were provided with extensive training to ensure they could best protect kids in care. But she acknowledged there were many challenges.
“We need to look what things we can do to improve our efforts to stamp this out. It is not acceptable,” she said.
Submissions to the inquiry into why young children go missing from care are now open.