REACH provides an individualised response to young people who go missing or are at risk of sexual exploitation. The team work primarily with children and young people aged between 10 and 17.
If a child or young person is already known to children's social care REACH will contact the allocated social worker in the first instance in order to determine whether additional services are required.
REACH will work with children's social care and other teams where children are already known and receiving services but it is primarily intended as an early intervention team responding to needs identified by a missing person report.
REACH aims to make contact with the child/young person and/or parents/carers within a maximum of 48 hours and undertake a return interview and risk assessment. Based upon the outcome of this meeting we can then offer a brief focussed intervention and or appropriate signposting in order to:
- increase the child's awareness of the dangers of running away and the issues young missing persons face
- build up a trusting relationship with him or her leading to opportunities to identify the issues that made them run away from home or care
- help the child to seek safer solutions to deal with their issues other than running away
- enable him or her to feel safe to ask questions if they don't understand something or want to find answers to their questions.