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© British Association of Social Workers

Understanding ‘Going Missing’: issues for social work and social services

MALCOLM PAYNE

Malcolm Payne is Professor of Applied Community Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University. He has worked in probation, social services, the national and local voluntary sector and in academic posts. His most recent books are Modern Social Work Theory (Macmillan, 1991) and Linkages: Networking in Social Care (Whiting and Birch, 1993). He is currently doing research on child advocacy and missing persons, and is involved in management and teaching on the voluntary sector and community care.

Correspondence to Malcolm Payne, Professor of Applied Community Studies, The Manchester Metropolitan University, 799 Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester M20 8RR.

Summary

Recent research about young people and adults who ‘go missing’ raises important issues for social work and the social services. Large numbers of young people go missing each year, becoming vulnerable to exploitation and at risk of committing crime and suffering from other social difficulties. Adults leave behind families with practical and emotional difficulties. A definition of ‘going missing’ should focus on absence from social expectations and responsibilities. Five groups of missing person are identified: runaways, pushaways, throwaways, fallaways and takeaways, reflecting different social situations in which going missing occurs. It is argued that going missing is one of a range of choices which people in difficulties may make, depending on their approach to problems in their lives and the availability of opportunities. Effective local co-ordination to focus on reasons for going missing, on reunions and returns to residential care or home, and to provide emotional and practical help to people ‘left behind’, are required, provided that care is taken to protect people who go missing because they are subject to abuse and violence.


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