Consulting Children and Young People Who Run Away From Home or Care

Manchester City Council need your help to give children and young people who run away from home or care a voice.

Manchester City Council wishes to recommission its Missing from Home and Care Service. The aim of the service is to reduce the incidence of children and young people going missing and the associated behaviour, equipping them to minimise risk and provide support to those who have run away.

Manchester City Council would like to seek the views of children and young people who have runaway, have considered running away, or who have experience of other siblings who runaway and their carers and other interested professionals to ensure the new service is designed with their views in mind.

The attached short survey is designed to enable professionals to tease out some of these issues on a one-to-one basis with a small number of children and young people who they are familiar with. The aim is to support young people who may experience trauma. For more information on how to support young people please refer to the ‘Help and advice’ sheet which you should give to each young person who completes the Questionnaire. This will take approximately 20 minutes per young person.

A separate Survey for those who no longer run away has been designed for older young people who may be able to complete the Survey without support.

The consultation will ensure children and young people are able to contribute to the redesign, remain the central focus of changes made and are genuinely held in mind by all practitioners and services.

The views of children and young people will be fed directly into the new Service Specification and procurement process:

• Where the results can not be acted upon for practical, or financial reasons, or due to Safeguarding concerns this will be fed back to children and young people
• Children and young people will be involved in the recruitment process and providers will be asked to set out how they intend to implement the findings of this consultation
• Where specific measures can not be taken forward prior to awarding the contract, this will be factored into future monitoring for implementation within 6 months of contract award

Completed surveys should be emailed to Ian Belnavis with Missing form Home in the subject field, to: [email protected] no later than Friday 1 March 2013, 12pm