North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has today urged the Welsh Government to act on calls by the Children’s Society to make de-briefs following a missing child’s return a statutory requirement.
Speaking in the Welsh Parliament this afternoon, Mr Isherwood stated that there are frequently links between children going missing from home and their experience of sexual abuse or exploitation and said that offering debriefs would result in improved intelligence gathering to help inform abuse and exploitation cases, in young people being referred into services for support and in information sharing about at-risk children between the police and social care.
Asking the First Minister to respond to the call for de-briefs to be made a statutory requirement in Wales, Mr Isherwood,, said:
“Worryingly, analysis by the Children's Society has shown that around 85 per cent of sexual offences against children reported to the police in England and Wales do not result in any action taken against the perpetrator, and the figures they include are that 70 per cent of sexual offences against children under 13 are familial sexual offences; in other words, domestic or occurring within their family or home.
“How, therefore, do you respond to the call on the Welsh Government by the Children's Society ‘to review the case for making the offer of de-briefs following a child's return from a missing incident a statutory requirement’, where there are frequently links between children going missing from home and their experience of sexual abuse or exploitation?
“They say this will result in improved intelligence gathering to help inform abuse and exploitation cases, in young people being referred into services for support and in information sharing about at-risk children between the police and social care, noting that de-brief is offered in England”.
In his response, the First Minister said: “My understanding from the cases that I myself have dealt with is that when a young person runs away and are returned, they are almost always spoken to and their experiences explored with them. Whether that is a debrief interview in the sense of the Children's Society's report I'd need to look at in greater detail, and whether there is a case for making that statutory, when, as it would seem to me, it would simply be good practice on the part of any childcare social worker, to have explored with a young person on return what has happened to them in the interim, I'm happy to look at that as well”.
Speaking outside the Chamber, Mr Isherwood said: “The Children’s Society states “There are often links between children going missing from home and their experience of sexual abuse or exploitation. Since 2011, the All Wales Protocol, which sets out how agencies should respond to missing children, has stated that upon return, children ‘should be given the opportunity to discuss why they went missing in a de-brief’. The Children’s Society have long been calling on the Welsh Government to require that children be offered a de-brief as is the case in England. Our analysis of missing children in Wales found that out of the 13 authorities in Wales who responded to our FOI request : 7 out of 13 authorities would offer a de-brief to a child missing from home. 9 out of 13 authorities would offer a de-brief to children missing from care. We urge the Welsh Government to review the case for making the offer of de-briefs following a child’s return from a missing incident a statutory requirement”.”
