Rated ‘very good’ by multi-agency staff across the UK
Throughout June and July 2021, we delivered virtual online webinars to 152 multi-agency professionals across the UK working in children’s residential settings, children’s services and, police missing and response teams.
Based on our recent report “Don’t make me feel guilty or punish me, going missing might be how I cope when I can’t ask for help”, these sessions focused on supporting professionals to understand why children go missing from care and the processes surrounding this which included risk assessment, reporting, and working with multi-agency partners around the child’s needs. The training was informed by care-experienced young people’s views.
This training received exceptionally high engagement and some good outcomes to match this which included –
– Participants who provided feedback graded the event as 4.5 out of 5 (5 being highest score)
– Both confidence and knowledge in responding to children missing from care grew from 3.6/3.7 (average-good) to 4.5 (good-very good)
– Awareness of MP and our services grew from 2.6 (low-average) to 4.4 (good to very good)
Here is what some of our attendee’s had to say –
“2nd course run by you that I’ve done, and both have been brilliant (I did one in Telford about 2yrs ago). Would love to have a course participants list, especially for fellow police officers so we have contacts and can swap ideas/best practice. Good fun course”
“Very interesting and informative, great sharing in the chat and engagement from participants”
“Loved the young people’s comments and insights”
Other participants told us what they might do as a result of our training –
“Think about involving young people in coming up with their own suggestions of how they can communicate they are OK with friends to avoid police being called if not necessary. Thinking more from child’s perspective”
“Consider impact on the young person of police involvement and how best to manage that to minimise further issues”
“Take other areas provisions and things that are working into our area. Ask young people to pop the helpline number in their phones”
“Be more mindful re. compassion fatigue. Be mindful of how important relationship building is, adapting practice to suit individual young people”
“Think more from child’s perspective as to how they were feeling before they went missing”
We have launched a regular email so that you can be aware of new missing person appeals and share them far and wide! We are also calling on all Heroes to be the eyes and ears for Missing People on the ground. Your sighting of a missing person could make a difference in a crucial time.