Understanding and Responding to Children who Run Away from Home and Institutions

Explore the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and running away

Although the high rates of running away are widely recognised as a problem in Europe, there is little research on running away and its causes.

This four-week course aims to change the misunderstandings around running away, showing that it is not a problem behaviour, but a sign that something is wrong.

Once you’ve completed this course, you’ll be able to better understand, respond to, protect, and support the children that you work with as a professional, who might be at risk of running away.

Discover the key reasons for running away

Over the duration of this course, you’ll look at how different contexts and circumstances can lead to vulnerabilities and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) associated with running away.

You’ll gain insight into the link between ACEs, trauma, and missing children, and will be able to identify patterns of behaviour and other risk factors for runaways.

Build responses and intervention strategies for runaways

Once you understand the risk factors for running away, you’ll explore effective intervention and prevention strategies for children with a history of running away or that are at risk of running away.

You’ll also look at the role of parents and carers, communities, and, most importantly, peers, in supportive responses for runaways and children at risk of running away.

Join Missing Children Europe in improving protection for runaway children

This course is part of the Running Away: Drivers, Awareness, and Responses (RADAR) project and Missing Children Europe is the project’s lead coordinating organisation.

With their overall expertise and knowledge of child disappearances, Missing Children Europe is ideally positioned to deliver this course, helping to improve the experience of children who go missing.

This course is designed for all professionals working with children. It will be of particular interest to social workers, teachers, healthcare workers, youth workers, and law enforcement officials who work with runaway children.

This course is also suitable for wider community members such as transport and restaurant staff, as well as families or carers. No prior learning or experience is required.

• Welcome to the course
• Welcome to the course
• Introduction
• Who are runaway children?
• The social misconceptions about runaways
• End of week 1
• Running away and adverse childhood experiences
• Why do children run away?
• The role of Adverse Childhood Experiences
• The risks of running away
• The impact on runaways and their families
• End of week 2
• Supporting runaway children
• Supporting runaways while away from home
• Good practices when a runaway returns
• The power of relationships
• Improving the support for runaways
• End of week 3
• Prevention work
• The importance of building bridges
• Improving prevention work for runaways
• Working collectively with children as a strategy for prevention
• End of week 4
• Course test