Gwent missing children's project launches today (From South Wales Argus)
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Missing children's project involving Gwent Police, Aneurin Bevan Health Board and councils launches today
6:30am Monday 18th March 2013 in News
By David Deans - Politics reporter
AN AMBITIOUS new project to stop missing young people from falling into sexual exploitation, crime and drug use will be officially launched today.
The Gwent Missing Children Project aims to assess the risks to children the first time they come to the attention of public services.
Children will be given the opportunity to talk to someone they can trust when they return – The Argus previously reported that the scheme is backed with £500,000 of cash from the Big Lottery Fund.
The so-called "missing children's hub" includes Gwent Police and Aneurin Bevan Health Board as well as council social and education workers, as well as an organisation to help counsel and support young people.
It is thought that young people may be more willing to speak to them than the police or other agencies.
Every month the force receives around 300 reports of children who have gone missing or have run away from home.
They can be at risk of harm from physical and sexual violence and exploitation, substance misuse, involvement in criminal activity and social and educational exclusion.
In 2011 police, health and social services in Gwent spent around £2.25 million on children who had run away three times or more.
Each agency is providing money to staff the team, while the Welsh Government is is coordinating the agencies taking part.
Gwent Police Deputy Chief Constable Jeff Farrar said: "I am totally convinced that the approach we are taking in joining together across public services to break the cycle for missing children will be truly ground breaking.
"This will set the standard for the way we respond to all vulnerable people."
Dr Andrew Goodall, chief executive of the Aneurin Bevan Health Board said: “We cannot afford to be complacent and this new team that works across agencies will ensure we all work together to try and protect every single child that goes missing.” The project is to be launched this morning at the Christchurch Centre, Malpas, Newport.
Newly installed minister for local government Lesley Griffiths said: “Anyone who has heard the stories of children repeatedly going missing will have been moved by them.
“Good public services can make a real difference to the lives of these young vulnerable young people and this project represents public services working together at its best.
LAURA, who is now an adult, went missing on and off for three years – from the time she was 13 to when she was 15.
Despite her mother being worried sick and the police going out look for her, Laura thought it was fun.
"You don’t realise what risks and dangers you put yourself through, when you’re so young and if you’re vulnerable," she said.
"You just think you’re with your friends, but you just need to take a step back and think they won’t be there for you when all hell breaks loose, they won’t be there at all."
"I never trusted anyone when I was younger, you’d get close to one social worker then you’d have a different one so they’d have to get to know you again .
"My ‘safe place’ was with my so-called friends but I look back now and it’s far from a safe place, it was like a war zone."
Comments(7)
Dee-Gee
says...
11:20am Mon 18 Mar 13
Clearly he was interested enough to have a hand in creating the child in the first place, and, unless I've been doing things HORRIBLY wrong through my adult life, condoms go on the Man Parts. So it seems a little impolite to put all the shame and responsibility on only one half of the equation.
Dai Rear
says...
2:20pm Mon 18 Mar 13
Dee-Gee wrote:I'm not apportioning blame. I really couldn't care less about the stupid adults and their behaviour.
What an oddly Victorian thing to say, "bear a child you cannot sustain with a man who is not interested"
Clearly he was interested enough to have a hand in creating the child in the first place, and, unless I've been doing things HORRIBLY wrong through my adult life, condoms go on the Man Parts. So it seems a little impolite to put all the shame and responsibility on only one half of the equation.
No doubt you had parents who loved you and worked to provide for you, as did I and my children, but when I see (as I have because I was involved to a tiny extent in the Bullfinch investigation) the pathetic miserable little creatures involved I would just like all the welfare supporters to come and have a look at them and know that's where welfare leads, to abject human misery.Whether they were conceived in the absence of barrier contraception or oral contraceptives is, with respect, completely immaterial.The Victorian part is the part of the welfare junkies who think that "gels can't avoid falling pregnant and when they do we have to rally round" Well they don't, and we don't. The message would get round quickly and the sum of human misery would be reduced.
whatintheworld
says...
2:42pm Mon 18 Mar 13
Dai Rear wrote:Correllation does not equal causation pal.
Dee-Gee wrote: What an oddly Victorian thing to say, "bear a child you cannot sustain with a man who is not interested" Clearly he was interested enough to have a hand in creating the child in the first place, and, unless I've been doing things HORRIBLY wrong through my adult life, condoms go on the Man Parts. So it seems a little impolite to put all the shame and responsibility on only one half of the equation.I'm not apportioning blame. I really couldn't care less about the stupid adults and their behaviour. No doubt you had parents who loved you and worked to provide for you, as did I and my children, but when I see (as I have because I was involved to a tiny extent in the Bullfinch investigation) the pathetic miserable little creatures involved I would just like all the welfare supporters to come and have a look at them and know that's where welfare leads, to abject human misery.Whether they were conceived in the absence of barrier contraception or oral contraceptives is, with respect, completely immaterial.The Victorian part is the part of the welfare junkies who think that "gels can't avoid falling pregnant and when they do we have to rally round" Well they don't, and we don't. The message would get round quickly and the sum of human misery would be reduced.
Dee-Gee
says...
3:41pm Mon 18 Mar 13
HAHAHAHAHAHahahahaaa
.. oh dear, I could barely read the rest of the comment for laughing! Suffice to say, that happy idyll is a little removed from my childhood experiences.
But back to your point - "The Victorian part is the part of the welfare junkies who think that "gels can't avoid falling pregnant and when they do we have to rally round" Well they don't, and we don't."
You might as well remove lifeguard services, on the grounds that if people realised nobody is coming to pull them out of the sea, they would be more careful about where they swam. Word would soon get around, after a few drownings.
Dee-Gee
says...
3:47pm Mon 18 Mar 13
If you will insist on arguing that it must be unacceptable for gels to accidentally *get* pregnant, you should at least argue that chaps be equally shunned by society, for making ill-advised deposits into accounts they have no intention of maintaining.
Dai Rear
says...
5:53pm Mon 18 Mar 13
Dee-Gee wrote:I'm very happy that the chaps should have to pay up for the babe or have their tackle removed. Fine by me, but not my point. If your mam and dad were strivers and you still had a miserable childhood, again, that's sad, but you must realise that you had more chance of happiness than some poor little creature whose mam had wanted a babe but wouldn't have had one were it not for welfare paying a gross income of about £300 a week taking into account Housing Benefit, who became bored with the child as she grew up and left her to the predators of Oxford, Rochdale , Preston, Birmingham , South London-you name it.Those sad little welfare children aren't ever going to recover, as you appear to have done, are they?
Also, you're still putting the emphasis on the gels falling pregnant. Gels can't fall pregnant without a chap supplying half the raw materials.
If you will insist on arguing that it must be unacceptable for gels to accidentally *get* pregnant, you should at least argue that chaps be equally shunned by society, for making ill-advised deposits into accounts they have no intention of maintaining.
Dai Rear says...
8:23am Mon 18 Mar 13
That would have sounded very hard in the days before universally available free contraception but we're no longer in the era of the housemaid's baby and desperately need a welfare system that has grown up.
Just as it's not acceptable to drink and drive, or smoke in a pub or make "racist" remarks it has GOT to become not acceptable to bear a child you cannot sustain with a man who is not interested.