VULNERABLE children living in care have been “going missing” from registered homes in Cumbria at a rate of more than two every day day.
An exclusive Newsquest Cumbria investigation today reveals the alarming scale of youngsters being reported missing from the county's registered children's homes, with many trying to return to a former home community outside Cumbria.
Over the last five and a half years, Cumbria Police has investigated nearly 4,000 reports of children who were reported missing by children's home staff.
One national charity says the reports are a symptom of a residential care system in crisis, with traumatised children often torn away from their home community and any stability they may previously benefitted from.
Following a Freedom of Information request, Cumbria Constabulary confirmed that it investigated 3,922 missing persons reports from registered children's homes in Cumbria between January 2021 and July this year.
Last year, there were 830 missing children reports, while in the months to July this year there were 362 missing persons reports.
Read more: Police join dozens objecting to Carlisle children's home plan
Police figures confirm a link to suspected crimes in many missing children reports, the majority being alleged violence. Last year, 314 alleged assaults were reported by Cumbrian children’s homes staff, with the five-year total being 1,655 alleged violent crimes.
The two local areas with the most missing persons reports from children's homes over the five years were Kendal and Carlisle, with 1,678 and 1,522 respectively.
A recent Cumberland Council planning application for a new residential children's home in Carlisle gave a fascinating insight into the issue. Police formally objected to plans for a new children’s home at Sunnymead, Upperby.
In its objection letter, the force said that the 27 children's homes in Carlisle, which (accommodate 49 young people, generate "disproportionate calls for police service.
These reports often involve the police recording an alleged crime.
The letter states: “Primarily, calls to police relate to a young person being reported missing or having ‘failed-to-return’ to an appointed premises." The children involved are regarded as ‘vulnerable,’ and at risk of abuse, manipulation, trauma, or other harm.
The letter continues: “A significant proportion of youngsters in care are not local and so there is a greater likelihood of them wishing to return to a former address or attempting to meet with persons from a previous association.
“The single reported absence of a youngster has a significant impact on our resources, which will frequently be to the detriment of other incidents being reported to Cumbria Police.”
Police searches for children frequently involve using police dog’s, specialist search advisors, Telecom’s investigators, and financial investigators.
If the child is from outside Cumbria, other forces are consulted. The letter adds that the children's home provider involved in the planning application already operates two homes locally, which since July last year generated 51 police call outs.
Some 37 of those calls were for children going missing.
The letter concludes: “This situation is not sustainable, and we seek the Council’s support in limiting the proliferation of these establishments, to which police interventions continue to be directed.”
Suzy Barber, from Become, a long-established charity which supports children involved in the care system, said a drive for profits has prompted many private children's home providers to locate premises in the Northwest where property is cheaper.
Many of the children – often traumatised by abuse or neglect – are torn away from everybody and everything they know when placed in those homes.
“They’re taken out of their school, and put into an area they don’t know, where people may look and sound different to them, and yet they’re expected to thrive. They run away because they want to get back to what they know.
“They want to return to their school and the teachers who know them. They’ve been taken from everything they know.”
Suzy suggested that some of the residential care staff employed to look after such traumatised children may lack the necessary training for managing complex needs. “When the police are called, that child can be instantly criminalised,” she said.
Residents living near such homes may be tempted to regard the children as “tearaways,” but their behaviour is often an expression of their trauma. “What they need is for their needs to be responded to,” she added.
A Sunnymead resident told The Cumberland News agreed: “Children need to be housed in the area where they’re from, as that would not put so much pressure on local services.
“It’s an issue that needs to be addressed.”
She agreed that children in care deserve compassion, given that many are already dealing with challenging issues.
In a statement, Inspire Scotland, the care home provider behind the Sunnymead planning application, said the company's proposal supports Cumberland Council's Children and Family Wellbeing Strategic Plan 2024–2026.
“This plan is designed to support more cared for children to return to Cumberland through effective commissioning and positive engagement with local children's home providers," said the statement.
“Our existing Cumberland services have predominantly supported children from local and neighbouring authorities and Sunnymead is being developed with that aim in mind.
“We are wholly committed to working constructively with Cumberland Constabulary and recognise the pressures they face when dealing with children in these homes. However, demand on police time varies significantly between providers and homes.
“Their figure of 80 interventions over the past 12 months refers to another provider.
“During the same period only 37 missing reports were recorded by our two homes in the area. Consequently, we feel it would be unfair to make a direct comparison.
“We hope Sunnymead is considered on its own merits, within the framework of a planning perspective.”
In December last year, the Become charity took its GoneTooFar campaign all the way to Downing Street, handing over a petition calling on the Government to keep children in care “close to the people and places that matter.”
Their statement said: “For over two years, we’ve been fighting to keep children close to the people and places that matter to them…
“There are almost 18,000 children in care in England living more than 20 miles from their home area. This represents 1 in 5 children in care.
" Some children have moved more than 500 miles.
“The number of children experiencing far away moves, is rising year on year. We know this is having a harmful impact on children’s lives and their futures.
“Being moved far away can disrupt a child’s education, their mental health, their relationships – including with brothers and sisters who might live elsewhere. Young people have told us that moving makes them feel lonely, isolated, and even more stigmatised.
“They say that they have little or no choice in where they live.”
A decision on the Inspire Scotland Sunnymead planning application is yet to be made. For more information about the work of Become, log on to the charity's website using the link in this sentence.
According to Ofsted, Cumbria's two local authority areas presently have 94 registered children's homes and 13 of these are rated as "requiring improvement". A "good" rating has been awarded to 24 homes, and three are "outstanding."
The remaining children's homes are not currently rated due to a recent reorganisation by one provider, though those homes have previously been inspected.
It is not known how many "unregistered" children's homes there are in Cumbria, but nationally there are thought to be at least 710, said an Ofsted spokeswoman.
Share