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Building Safety

Building Safety: Co-designing safety and fairness into the missing response for children in care who are at risk beyond their families.

Building Safety explored the role that statutory agencies have in building safety and/or creating risk in relation to extra-familial harm. Particularly the role they have in mitigating or reinforcing inequalities in young people’s lives. We did this by partnering with Bristol City Council to explore one area of practice in depth: the missing response for children in care who are at risk beyond their families.

Almost a quarter of young people reported missing in Bristol in 2022 were children in care, despite making up only 0.6% of young people in the area. Black, Asian, and Mixed-Race boys in care were reported missing more regularly and more often than their peers, connected to concerns around criminal exploitation. This reflects national figures that tell us that children in care and Black young people are over-represented in missing reports.

When young people are missing from care it can increase their exposure to harm. It also increases their interactions with the police and other statutory agencies, and their risk of being criminalised. Children in care and Black young people already have far more interactions with the police and the criminal legal system than their peers.

Does the current statutory and police-led missing response contribute to safety or risk in these young people’s lives?

Building Safety was a collaborative project between young people, carers, community organisations, and professionals that worked together over 6 months to explore these issues and co-design safety and fairness into Bristol City Council’s missing response for young people in care who are at risk beyond their families.

The Building Safety Consortium told us that:

  • Young people in care, particularly young people recorded as Black, Asian, Mixed-Race and Arab, are more likely to be reported missing than their peers.
  • The likelihood and quality of the missing response is and determined by a young person’s care status, background, gender, and ‘race’.
  • Bias enters the protection response in the identification of harm, the decision to report a young person missing, the risk assessment stage and in the protection response.
  • Children who are looked after were removed from supportive relationships and communities resulting in escalation to statutory and police processes.
  • Children who are looked after were subject to competing and contradictory pressures.
  • Caring responses are slower for Black young people.
  • Young people were treated differently by the police if they knew their ‘background’/depending on the area they are from.

These five principles should guide the missing response: 

  • Be rooted in trusted relationships that young people choose.
  • Be risk-sensible to avoid unnecessary escalation to statutory services and the police.
  • Maximise guardianship for young people by increasing access to youth workers/services out of hours.
  • Support and resource care and nurture in all placements and services.
  • Have oversight of and demand equitable treatment and respect for all young people.
  • Use collaborative safety planning and risk assessment to avoid escalation to the police outside of emergencies - use responders who young people know and trust.
  • Resource youth workers and community organisations to build safety in young people’s relationships and in the places they spend time - rather than using statutory frameworks to control young people.
  • Include non-professionals and non-traditional partners that young people choose in statutory safety planning, risk assessment and support plans.
  • Provide care standards, training, and support for carers to help with risk assessment, respite and creating the conditions for caring and flexible placements.
  • Keep young people in familiar communities where possible to maximise organic forms of guardianship and care.
  • Use information sharing to reflect on practice and biases rather than building intelligence on young people.
Report: Building Safety: Co-designing safety and fairness into the missing response for children in care who are at risk beyond their families.

This report shares learning from the Building Safety project about co-designing safety and fairness into the missing response for children in care who are at risk beyond their families.
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Lauren Wroe, 2024. 

Building Safety: Co-designing safety and fairness into the missing response for children in care who are at risk beyond their families