A quarter of young runaways end up sleeping rough

The Children's Society will try to highlight the risks and lack of facilities facing young runaways at its conference on Wednesday.

Research by the charity shows 100,000 children in the UK under 16 run away each year.

Runaways policy advisor Andy McCullough said lack of facilities meant many faced a "service lottery".

"Sadly, for some young people, running away is a short term solution to whatever's going on at home, they run away from one problem to substitute it for others," he said.

"But there are pockets of excellent practice - this conference hopefully will pull together those and expose those to people."

Of the 100,000 children who go missing for at least one night each year, one in four is under 11 years old.

One quarter end up sleeping rough and one in seven reports having been physically or sexually assaulted while away from home.

New projects

Delegates to the central London conference include representatives from local authorities, the police and social service.

They will pool their experience of assisting young runaways and look at how children can be dissuaded from running with talks, including one from a former runaway, and workshop sessions.

There are a lot of young people in many parts of the country who don't have access to somewhere to stay if they run away from home Gwyther Rees Children's Society 'I was a teenage runaway'

They will also hear about a Department for Education and Skills-commissioned report by the Children's Society, evaluating 19 projects working with young runaways set up in the past 18 months.

The Working with Young Runaways report, to be published in full next week, highlights the success of projects offering crisis intervention for first-time runaways and those aged over 16.

But it warns children whose parents do not report them as missing, especially those aged 14-15, are not getting the help they need and face risks on the streets.

The society's head of research Gwyther Rees said the report highlighted the need for more facilities for runaways.

"There is only one refuge in England for young people who run away - in London," he said.

"The government has recently funded a few other local initiatives which are starting to provide accommodation as well.

"But really there are a lot of young people in many parts of the country who don't have access to somewhere to stay if they run away from home," Mr Rees said.