No beds for 9,000 young runaways

Published on Saturday 28 November 2009 19:12

SCOTLAND has a critical shortage of refuge beds for young runaways, the nation's biggest children's charity has warned.

Aberlour Child Trust said there were just three spaces in the country for the 9,000 youngsters who flee their homes every year, most escaping neglect, violence or conflict.

The charity, which runs Scotland's only runaway refuge at a secret location in the Glasgow area, said similar centres were needed in each of the big city regions.

Its experts believe as many as one in five of under-18s who run away in Scotland every year would need somewhere safe to go, rather than being found by the police and returned to parents or care where they may face further danger.

The only Scottish centre is currently funded by a variety of public and charity-sector partners after most of its set-up costs were met by the Scottish Government. The charity is urging the Scottish Government to provide new funding for refuges in Edinburgh and the North-east.

Laura Irvine, the social worker who runs Aberlour's Glasgow refuge, said: "Scotland needs to wake up to the fact that we have this hidden problem of runaways. Most of them are not even being reported missing by their parents or carers. We have girls – and boys – who are only given a roof over their head in exchange for sex with adults. We have girls who have been sleeping up closes.

"We need to change the stereotype of runaways. These aren't children who are heading off for the big city bright lights or teenagers with a bit of attitude. They are very, very vulnerable youngsters."

The statistics on runways in Scotland are stark and are not improving. Research has persistently shown that one in nine youngsters will run away at some point in their childhood or adolescence. And that figure barely changes depending on their economic, ethnic or geographical background.

Half of runaways are escaping neglect or abuse, sexual or violent. Others cite confrontation. Many come from the homes of addicts. As many as 50,000 Scottish children are believed to be growing up in the homes of illegal drug-users. Perhaps another 100,000 have parents who abuse alcohol.

Irvine has had some 218 children through her refuge since it opened in 2004. Many were girls who were sexually exploited.

The Aberlour refuge, which is called ROC, comes with its own outreach team and makes every effort to help reconcile children with their families or find ways of fixing problems. About two-thirds of children go back to where they ran away from after staying at the centre, usually for seven days or less. Others find longer-term safety somewhere else. "I can't say we take them in broken," said Irvine. "And I can't say we put them out fixed. But we give them some breathing-space, a wee bit of safety for a while."

Aberlour's call for more refuges was given more impetus last week by a major piece of research financed by the UK and Scottish Government and carried out by the Children's Society. It found that one in five children either slept rough or came to harm after running away. There should be emergency accommodation in every urban centre, the study found, and some kind of provision in rural areas too, with local authorities sharing the costs.