Clare Lushey, Research Associate The impact of No Wrong Door and the Embedded Police Roles on Missing from Home or Care Incidents Clare Lushey, Research Associate 3rd International Conference on Missing Children and Adults, 14th – 16th June 2017

Presentation outline Overview of the No Wrong Door (NWD) innovation: Staff Accommodation options Police roles Missing from care or home protocol NWD evaluation Missing incidents data Summary

NWD innovation Funded by Department for Education (DfE) Innovation Programme. North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) initiative. Operates from two ‘hubs’. Scarborough and Harrogate. CYP, aged 12 to 25, who are either LAC, edging to or on the edge of care (ETC/EOC), or care leavers. 355 children and young people were supported under NWD between April 2015 and March 2017

NWD innovation 2 hubs (residential beds, specialist staff) A manager, 2 deputy managers, residential carers, portfolio leads, a clinical psychologist, a speech and language therapist, a police liaison officer, and relief workers/foster carers. Services: Specialist staff: Clinical psychologist, a speech and language therapist, and police liaison officer Outreach support: provided to CYP living with their birth/adoptive families or with foster carers, or living in independent or supported accomm/lodgings. Variety of NWD accomm opt: residential care (hubs), foster care, supported lodgings, supported accommodation, and bespoke packages. The hubs are children’s homes – there are four beds and two emergency beds. Specialist staff. Portfolio leads develop support plans around: accommodation, risky behaviours, building relationships, transitions, emotional wellbeing.

NWD innovation Improve: Accommodation stability. Engagement and achievements in education, training and employment (EET). Relationships with others (family, carers, workers). Planning of transitions from care to independent living. Resilience, self-esteem and wellbeing. Access to support in a crisis. Reduce Criminal activity. Missing incidents Substance and alcohol misuse Child sexual exploitation Costs to LA, NHS and Criminal Justice System. The integrated team supports the young person throughout their journey to ensure that they are not passed from service to service and instead are supported by a dedicated team Missing from Home incidents is a major concern for young people. They put the young person at increased risk. NWD works with adolescents with the most complex needs in North Yorkshire - these young people can often have entrenched behaviours with a history of going missing and associated risk taking behaviours.

Police Liaison Officers and Intelligence Analyst Seconded from North Yorkshire Police (NYP) Police Liaison Officers work in the NWD hubs & the analyst at NYCC offices The roles offer the opportunity to develop consistent working relationship with the local constabulary

Police Liaison Officers and Analyst Reduce missing incidents from care or home: Adopting an agreed missing from care or home policy Disrupting or arresting other parties targeting children Attending RAISE (Risk, Analysis, Intervention, Solution, Evaluation) meetings Build relationships with young people Collating and sharing intelligence about missing children: Addresses the missing child has been attending Identifying suspects (older males) targeting vulnerable children for CSE Developing and providing subject profiles An agreed multi agency approach to ensure that responses are sensitive and proportionate. reducing missings and associated costs. The RAISE process facilitate the sharing of intelligence and information between all partner agencies. The RAISE process supports the NWD model to safeguard the young people by the sharing of real time intelligence.

Adopted a risk based approach: Children and young people who go missing or absent from home and care – joint NYCC & NYP protocol Consistent risk assessed approach is used every time a child is absent or missing Adopted a risk based approach: Missing: Anyone whose whereabouts cannot be established and where the circumstances are out of character, or the context suggests the person may be the subject of crime or at risk of harm to themselves or another. Absent: A child is not at a place where they are expected or required to be but no apparent risk. The child will be categorised as “absent” if they are not at a place where they are supposed to be and there is no apparent risk. Still reported to the Police, but they will not be actively looking for the child. Instead monitoring and reviewing the case - if there is a change to the circumstances that increases the level of risk then it will be escalated to “missing”. Absent is use when young people is absent for a short period of time (a few hours/less than overnight), and after a careful and thorough risk assessment, the absence does not raise concern for their immediate safety. DEALT WITH USING THE ABSENSE PROCESS.

Absent Process Proactive attempts to locate the child Checking child’s place residence and surrounding areas Attempting to contact the child via telephone, text and social networking sites Contacting the child’s family and friends Check risk assessments and care plans to ascertain risk When located notifying the appropriate people: parent(s)/carer(s), social worker If child is not located they must be reported as missing to the police. If located and deemed at risk then they police should be notified. If notifying the police has not been necessary – the incident should be recorded acc to CSC protocols. The absent protocol is a proportionate response to a child not being where they are supposed to be and saves money as searches for missing people are very costly.

Risk assessment (low/medium/high) Investigate Missing Process Risk assessment (low/medium/high) Investigate Support the needs of the family and those close to the missing child Risk assessment to identify high risk cases immediately. Not going to go into this too much as the police have their standard missing person procedures. Mainly I wanted to highlight the absent procedure.

Evaluation of NWD CCFR, Loughborough University Commenced April 15 and completed March 17 Due for publication June 2017 A process, impact and economic evaluation of NWD was undertaken. The process module involved exploring the mechanisms through which the service was delivered, Impact module examined the outcomes for the children and young people engaging in the NWD innovation. Economic involved investigating cost effectiveness and the value for money that the service offered.

Evaluation of NWD Aims to measure changes in CYP in the indicators discussed and costs Qualitative: 60 baseline interviews with CYP. 32 follow-up interviews with CYP. 23 interviews with birth/adoptive parents and foster carers 24 Interviews with CYP’s key/outreach workers (in relation to 42 CYP). interviews with 50 members of staff at baseline Interviews with 27 members of staff at follow-up Allows opportunity to explore changes and piece together support and experiences over a 6-12 month period Transitions (home and independence) Placement stability Support provided Outcomes.

Evaluation of NWD Quantitative: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQ) scores were available for 472 young people 34 YP completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) Data collated by the NWD team (CYP needs, circumstances, support and outcomes) on 282 CYP Existing child level data (CSC, NYP) SDQ scores were available for 472 young people; 125 related to NWD young people and the remaining 347 to non NWD young people - used for comparison purposes

Missing from care and home incidents, February 2015 to February 2016 In the two months prior to NWD missing incidents in NYCC were at a high of 69/70 per month. Following the commencement of NWD they have been on overall decline, with a reduction of 50% a year later in February 2016. The police liaison officer roles and the analyst have been crucial in reducing the numbers and duration of missing from care or home incidents. Source: North Yorkshire Police

Police Liaison Officers and Intelligence Analyst The two police liaison officers are permanently funded by NYP. The analyst is jointly funded by NYP and NYCC for 12 months. “We have been evaluating the effectiveness of No Wrong Door and seen over time how good this project is. We can see the clear benefits for children and for the police service in preventing further offending, minimising problems for the wider community and keeping children safe” (Police Commissioner Julia Mulligan) This has led to savings to the police

Summary NWD operates from two ‘hubs’ in North Yorkshire. Aims to improve outcomes and reduce costs to partner agencies. Police roles offer the opportunity to reduce missing incidents. Early findings positive: reductions in missing incidents. Process, impact and economic evaluation. Report published in June 2017

Evaluation: contact details Clare Lushey, Research Associate. Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University. Tel: 01509 228366 Email: C.J.Lushey@lboro.ac.uk

NWD innovation: contact details Martin Kelly and Janice Nicholson, NWD project leads. North Yorkshire County Council Tel: 01609 536425 and 01609 535695 Emails: Martin.Kelly@northyorks.gov.uk and Janice.Nicholson@northyorks.gov.uk