As statistics show an alarming number of children go missing from care and are more likely to be exploited, groomed or trafficked, the Mirror asks what we can do to give these children a better start in life.
A perfect storm of defiance and vulnerability puts children in care at an incredibly high risk of going missing. “Unwanted, unloved and uncared for” are the heartbreaking words used by artist, author and advocate for foster children Louise Allen to describe her own feelings when she was a kid in care.
With 1 in 10 children in the care system going missing, compared to 1 in 200 children brought up outside it, the Missing People charity says that while each case is individual, in many cases, kids are unhappy in their foster homes. But with 75,000 of the 170,000 people who go missing in the UK every year being children, the numbers are alarming.
In an exclusive interview with The Mirror to mark National Missing Children’s Day today (May 25), Louise Allen, now 58, from Somerset, reflects on her own tough childhood. Growing up in care in the 1970s, Louise ended up peddling heroin from Oxford to London, before running away from home when she was just 15.
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“I was just 14 when me and some other girls started moving heroin from Oxford to London,” she recalls “It wasn’t roadmen who ran the county lines back then, but rockabillies, who looked for vulnerable children to take advantage of. We would take packages in little army canvas bags with anarchy badges all over them and just hand over the packages for cash, before catching the train back and going down the pub.
“I didn’t understand the consequences. It only became scary when one of the girls was sexually abused by one of the rockabillies in front of us, and we couldn’t do anything about it. When you grow up in an abusive environment, you often see the world very differently to others – you don’t get scared easily.”
Children like Louise were also groomed and exploited. An alarming 48 per cent of looked-after children identified as exploited went missing in 2020, with each of these going missing, on average, 10.6 times a year. Local authorities identified more than 1,200 looked-after children who were victims of trafficking in 2020. On average, these kids went missing eight times per year.
Now a happily married mum, Louise has fostered children for 13 years and says the social care system needs reforming if vulnerable children are to be given the chance of happy, successful lives. She says the lack of cohesion between the different agencies makes it easier for kids in care to go missing – something our Missed campaign has highlighted needs to change.
Recalling her efforts to track down a missing teenager who had been staying with her, she says: “Children in care go missing because they don’t feel grounded or loved. It’s easier for them to go missing. I remember trying to track down someone who was living with me just last year, and I couldn’t find them through their social worker.”
The profile of foster carers is incredibly important, according to Louise. “Often the best foster carers are those who have life experience, have been through adversity themselves, have empathy and awareness and the strength of character to stand up for a child who needs help,” she says. “My mum was a child when she had me and was forced to go down the adoption route.
“I was placed with a family who were already on social services’ radar for emotionally and physically abusing a little boy. Yet they still placed me there. I never felt like I fitted in or that I was wanted or loved. Living in Oxford was difficult because I was poor yet surrounded by wealth, and I was olive-skinned, unlike my adoptive family and friends – I later found out my birth father was Jewish and birth mother was half Italian.
“Before I ran away at 15, I was beaten so badly that I smashed a rib and cracked my head on the kitchen sink. That night (when she ran away), I remember walking five miles to Oxford Rail Station and getting on a train and ending up in Portsmouth. I still to this day have a picture of when I first arrived, looking lost and lonely on the beach.”
Exceptionally resourceful because of her upbringing, Louise knew how to fend for herself, collecting loose change from phone boxes and finding a filthy bedsit in a shared house frequented by drug users. No one came looking for her, so she took on cleaning jobs, educated herself and eventually enrolled at art school, becoming a teacher at 22.
Now, more than 40 years since she ran away, she says: “Young people are still being groomed, trafficked and exploited – I see it all the time. I didn’t feel wanted, so there was nothing for me to lose by running away. I came so close to so much danger, and the fact of the matter is that there are people out there who know how to spot and take advantage of vulnerable children.”
Also, when young people leave care, their support stops, according to Louise, who launched a national recruitment campaign called Louise and a charity called Spark Sisterhood, which creates learning, mentoring and employment opportunities for girls in – and leaving – care. “Children run away from care because they don’t feel loved and wanted. The most vulnerable are those who are neurodivergent, autistic, have ADHD or have permanent brain damage from foetal drug/alcohol syndrome,” she explains.
“Often these children go through schools and placements where they have not received an EHCP (education health care plan). I know this from experience after looking after children with the syndrome. Sadly, groomers are very powerful. Gang leaders know what to look for and who to target, and no one is keeping an eye on these children.
“The different agencies haven’t joined up. We’ve lost 22,000 street police, and we’re creating a perfect storm for child abuse. We owe these children so much more.”
‘I don’t want children in care to go through what I went through’
Running away at the age of 12 because of problems at home and being placed in more than 15 different homes as a teenager, Victoria Odude’s mental health rapidly deteriorated.
Now 26, the Londoner says: “I was depressed and felt alone because there was no one in my corner. I didn’t even have a suitcase – just a few things in a backpack or a black bag. I remember being moved all around the UK and feeling alone and scared.
“I had one amazing foster carer – I was only there for six months, and to this day, I still spend Christmas and Easter with her family. She taught me how to cook. We’d garden together, and she was really involved in my education and paid for a tutor to help me catch up on the school work I’d missed.
“She made me feel wanted and would introduce me, saying ‘this is my daughter Victoria.’ It was never meant to be long-term, so I had to move to a children’s home, and I ran away. I got into trouble with gangs and used drugs and alcohol. Once I learned what exploitation and grooming meant – and related it to what I went through – it was eye-opening.
“A lot of the time, children aren’t given any say in where they are placed, and some foster carers change as soon as the social worker has left. Now I’m an advisor for Missing People and I’m an advocate for children in care, because I don’t want them to go through what I went through.
“We need to listen to young children in care and not just make decisions on their behalf without getting to know them. Their mental health should be a priority, and their voices should be heard.
“Missing People relies on public donations to continue our vital work. Please donate today to help us be there for every missing person and their loved ones for as long as they need us.”
You can donate to the Missing People charity here https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/support-missing-people/donate
The Mirror is using its platform to launch Missed – a campaign to shine a light on underrepresented public-facing missing persons in the UK in collaboration with Missing People Charity. Because every missing person, no matter their background or circumstances, is someone’s loved one. And they are always Missed.
