Immediate response when a child is missing or away from the home without permission

When a child is missing or away from the home without permission, staff must follow the home's missing-from-care procedure and the local multi-agency protocol immediately. Do not wait for the situation to become dramatic: delay increases risk, wastes intelligence and reduces the chances of tracing the child.

The Children's Homes guide requires the home to set out staff roles and procedures for when a child is missing or absent without permission. In Wales, the All Wales practice guide says reasonable efforts to make contact should be made promptly and any risk information must be passed to the police without delay when the child should be reported missing.

Immediate response priorities

• Act fast: check known locations and likely contacts in line with local procedure.
• Share current risk: provide recent triggers, vehicle details, phone numbers, associates, relevant photos and identified vulnerabilities.
• Tell the right people: inform the on-shift manager and follow notification steps for the social worker, placing authority and police where required.
• Keep a live chronology: record checks, calls, sightings, decisions and updates as they occur.
• Think wider: consider risk to other children if the same people, places or pick-up points are involved.
• Follow the protocol, not habit: repeated episodes must not reduce the urgency of the response.

Staff must not make private deals with the child, ignore an absence because it is familiar, or assume a known location is safe. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, local protocols may distinguish missing from other categories of absence, so staff should follow the local agreement rather than personal judgment.

Manager focus: readiness before the episode

Missing from care is the moment to tighten safeguarding, not to step back and hope for a routine return.