The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
THE MISSING
The majority of missing person cases involve children who have run away from home. Today we hear what is being done to help young runaways who have no place safe to turn. By Stefan Morkis and Jack McKeown
ACROSS THE UK, more than 100,000 children run away from home each year. Charities working with these youngsters have two things they need to think about — what they are running from and what they may be running to.
Most are found swiftly and returned to the family home, but the consequences can last a lifetime.
According to Shelter Scotland’s Dundeebased Safe and Sound project, which is run in conjunction with Relationships Scotland, 84% of homeless Scots under the age of 25 ran away from home at least once before they were 16 years of age.
A fifth of people who are now homeless ran away before they had even reached the age of 11. Diverting young runaways away from the path that leads to homelessness is the reason the Safe and Sound project was created.
It works with young people at risk of running away or homelessness across Tayside and Fife or where the youngster has run away and been found by police.
This help can take the form of providing relationship counselling in families where someone has run away or, if there is no option of familial reconciliation, helping find a home for the person who has runaway and is at risk of homelessness.
Project leader Richard McGilvray said: “Runaway is quite an emotive term — the actual subject is so complex. People run away for different reasons and in different ways. Some will plan it well in advance, some will leave on the spur of the moment.
“Some will disappear and lose contact with their family and friends, some will run away to other relatives or friends and sofa surf. It is a case-by-case basis.”
“We have to think about what they are running away from and what they are running away to,” he said.
“They become instantly more vulnerable. Even if they’re staying on a friend’s couch it will put a strain on their relationship. Before they know it they can be even more isolated and forced to stay with people they don’t know as well.”
Some cases the charity works with are where people have been kicked out of the family home with no place to go.
“Our first case was one where he had been handed a suitcase and told to leave.”
The incident, involving a Fife teenager who was told to leave home by his father after failing his college course, led to the Safe and Sound team working with relationship advisors to mediate between the boy and his family. Eventually he was able to return home and even began a job working with his father.
That story had a happy ending, but for some runaways, returning home is not always an option.
“We will speak to someone who has run away and if it is appropriate for them to return home — if not we will speak to a carer to find an
appropriate plan.”