MISPER (MISsing PERsons)

Working closely with South Yorkshire Police, SAFE@LAST runs a successful Missing Persons scheme for young people who are reported missing, and subsequently returned home. This service is available to children running from home and care in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield; amongst the young people with whom we work, we have reduced repeat running from 59% to under 5%.

Through the MISPER scheme, SAFE@LAST takes referrals for young people who have been missing or run away from home and have subsequently returned. This is mainly through South Yorkshire Police but as more organisations become aware of our services we are increasingly taking referrals from other agencies. The scheme offers young people the chance to talk to an independent person about the reasons that led to them running away and what help and support they need in order to prevent re-occurrence of running, this is in line with Government Guidelines.

The project team arranges to meet with the young person and their family in order to discuss and hopefully address the issues that may have caused them to run away; we often work very closely with other agencies. The main aim of the project is to stop repeat running which we do through 1-1 support of each young person who engages with us. Using a child centred approach we adapt our style of support to cater for individual cases as each young person is completely unique and different from the last. Each and every young person remains at the heart of the change, however big or small that may be, and we continue to support them as much as possible, ensuring the best possible outcome.