Imagine if your child, mother, dog/cat, anyone who is important to you, went missing. How diligently would you try to locate someone them? We must use the same (or more) diligence to locate the children we serve who have run away or gone missing. There are many hostile and dangerous environments on the streets or with a parent who has absconded with a child. Time is of the essence when making diligent efforts to locate a child and bring the child back to a safe environment. We are the life-support for the children we serve, and child safety is our number one priority.

Child Welfare Professionals are required to make diligent and ongoing efforts to locate missing children within specific timeframes when they are missing. The first attempt must be completed within the first 24 hours of the child being reported missing. After the 24-hour time frame has elapsed, then at least one attempt to locate the child every 7 days until the child is located is required. The Child Welfare Professional’s efforts to locate are in addition to the weekly efforts by the SCC Missing Child Point of Contact.

Documentation in FSFN

A home visit note must still be created every 25 days for a youth that is on runaway status. When you enter the Home Visit note, within the Face-to-Face contact select “Not Attempted” and as the Reason Not Seen, select “Runaway”.

In addition to completing efforts to locate, the Child Welfare Professional must also maintain contact with the Law Enforcement entity assigned. This communication is required and is not to be used as an “effort to locate.” The Child Welfare Professional should provide Law Enforcement with any additional information that may be useful in locating the child, as well as any updates regarding the efforts that the Child Welfare Professional has made to locate the child. The Child Welfare Professional’s communication with law enforcement is not considered an effort to locate but should be documented in FSFN.

Examples of Efforts to Locate the Child (this list is not all-inclusive and are only examples of various avenues to explore in attempting to locate a child):

• Contact the child’s parents and other relatives
• Distribute missing child posters in the community
• Call the child’s cell phone
• Contact the child’s school
• Contact the child’s place of employment
• Contact the child’s friends 
• Contact the child’s therapist or other service providers
• Contact former placements
• Contact the child’s JPO or DJJ worker
• Contact hospitals
• Check locations that the child has been known to frequent
• Check activity on the child’s social media sites (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)

Documentation of these efforts to locate and communication with Law Enforcement should be entered into FSFN within 48 hours.