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Reprinted with permission.
Chapin Hall has recently conducted the largest study to date of youth who run away from out-of-home placements in an effort to understand the trends, demographics and reasons behind this phenomenon. Running away from foster care exposes youth to grave risks and prevents them from receiving needed educational and treatment services. This information, presented in an issue brief titled Youth Who Run Away from Out-of Home Care, may better protect youth by helping child welfare agencies prevent children from running away.
Key findings about these youth include:
90% of those who ran away from care were between the ages of 12 and 18.
Girls were more likely to run away than boys.
Youth who experienced placement instability were more likely to run than those with stable placements histories.
Youth placed in foster home care were less likely to run than those in residential care.
Those in kinship care were less likely to run than both groups.
Youth placed with siblings were less likely to run than those placed on their own.
While the likelihood of a first run was low and difficult to predict, youth who had run away once before were found to be very likely to do so again.
Researchers also collected data on trends in running away over time, what happened to youth when they ran away and reasons why youth ran away. These analyses lead to a number of implications for child welfare practice. In general, the authors suggest that viewing running away as a coping behavior may help agencies begin to devise prevention strategies. Some of their specific suggestions for how child welfare agencies can address runaways include:
Facilitating relationships between foster youth and schools as well as foster families and biological family members to provide youth with a critical sense of consistency and stability.
Involving youth in developmentally appropriate activities to foster a sense of normalcy.
Increasing attention to assessment and treatment of substance abuse and mental health issues.
Focusing prevention efforts on engaging youth who run away and return to decrease the occurrence of subsequent runs.
