Video: Refuge for runaways gives hope and haven for the children who try to escape from life

AS many as 100,000 children in the UK go missing from home each year.

It may only be for one night and in some cases it may just be a group of misguided youngsters who go camping without their parents' permission. But there is a darker side: many flee physical or mental abuse at home and end up sleeping on the streets with some surviving through begging, stealing, drug dealing and prostitution.

Safe@Last, a charity based at Dinnington in South Yorkshire, works specifically with young people who are at risk of running away from home. It was set up by Hilary Massarella a decade ago, after she watched a TV documentary about a young woman who was abused by her own family.

"The story was harrowing in itself, but what I found incredible was there were only 18 refuge beds in the UK, when figures show that 100,000 kids a year go missing overnight. I thought, 'This can't be right,'" she says. "Now there are only five beds, so 10 years on we're actually in a worse situation to the one that so horrified me then."

Safe@Last provides two of these beds along with a 24-hour helpline, a missing person's service and an education programme warning young people about the dangers of running away. Next month, the charity celebrates its 10th anniversary and in the past decade has worked with more than 4,000 young people.

"Running away is categorically not the answer," says Hilary. "There are instances where home, quite frankly, isn't the right place for them to be, but in the majority of cases it is and it's a situation that can be resolved. There is a lot of careful work needed, because you're often faced with a chaotic and unsafe situation. But other times it can just be a breakdown in communication."

Unlike other children's charities, Safe@Last works specifically with children who run away or have been thrown out their home. "We get children as young as 11 and 12 who are thrown out, which is unbelievable. This is usually due to family breakdown because sometimes, very sadly, one parent will choose a second partner over and above their child in terms of loyalty."

Hilary says that she has come across children as young as seven who have run away and and the charity works with a "significant" number under the age of 11. In South Yorkshire alone, around 4,000 young people each year spend at least one night away from home.

"That's a lot of kids that go missing and spend a night on the streets, or somebody's sofa, or with a stranger. The minute they're not in the care of a responsible adult they're extremely vulnerable to predatory grown-ups. The main issues they come up against are sexual exploitation and physical abuse while they're on the streets."

Another one is crime. "If they're away for more than a 24 hour period, then frankly they're going to have to steal something to eat because they probably won't have access to any money. If they're 16, they can't rent a room even if they have some money, so they're in a situation where crime is inevitable – either as victim or perpetrator. The other danger is getting involved in drug or alcohol abuse, or dealing as a way of surviving. These are the kind of things an under 16 year-old is vulnerable to within hours of leaving home."

The longer a young person is away from home, the more parlous their situation becomes. "One of the questions I often get asked when I give public talks is, 'Well, aren't they just streetwise kids?' But the reality is different. If my kids were out on the street at night, they would be too frightened to get in a car with a stranger. Unfortunately, the more streetwise you are, the braver you become, and the more times you've stayed safe the more invincible you believe you are. So in actual fact it's quite the reverse: young people become more vulnerable the longer they spend on the street, because they're more likely to think, 'I'll go off with this stranger because he might buy me a cup of coffee, or a sandwich'."

The charity has its own two-bed hostel, providing safe and confidential accommodation for young people and is now the only one of its kind in England. "More often than not they (the beds) are empty, which we see not as a failure but as a huge success, because basically if a child under 16 ends up in refuge, we've all failed," says Hilary. If a youngster can't go back home, the charity tries to find an alternative, whether it's staying with another family member, or going into residential or foster care.

"We don't have to fill that refuge to make it worth its while. It's there as a last resort." Even so, she believes there is a worrying shortage of safe havens that young people can turn to. "We don't need hundreds and hundreds of beds, but we do need a lot more There should be a network of refuges across the UK."

Most the children who come into contact with Safe@Last are referred there by the police, local authorities, schools or parents. Hayley Holmes is a senior project worker, based in Rotherham, and one of the team that helps these vulnerable youngsters. "They tend to be teenagers. Sometimes they've fallen in with the wrong crowd and they might be using alcohol or substances, sometimes they might not get on with their step-dad or step-mum, or their parents have mental health problems," she says. "The biggest challenge is making these young people realise what could have happened to them when they ran away, because they don't really know how much of a big bad world it can be."

Alison Meadows, a project worker based in Doncaster, says the common denominator among those who run away from home is the breakdown of family life. "We've had youngsters referred to us who've been at private schools and who come from fairly wealthy families. It doesn't

matter what your background is, if you've got problems at home, you've got problems at home – being poor doesn't make a child run away."

Carl, 15, is one of the many teenage runaways helped by the charity. "I stayed on a park bench in Sheffield for one night and then a school teacher told me about Safe@Last and when I was there I felt like I was safe rather than being on the street wandering around for stuff. When I got there I felt right sad, but then we watched the football and cooked a pizza and it felt like a boys' night in. I know that now someone will at least listen to me, but before nobody was and it seemed like nobody cared about me and if I was safe or not."

Two-thirds of Safe@Last's funding comes from the likes of the Henry Smith Charity and BBC Children In Need, as well as smaller contributions from the police and local authorities. But the charity

itself has to raise around 170,000 each year and with public sector cuts looming there may well be difficult times ahead.

Despite such uncertainty, Hilary has no doubt about its continuing importance. "Young runaways are invisible and you only know about them when there is an organisation like ours that is being asked for help. So it's vital for children here and now but it goes beyond that because we know that homeless adults are very likely to have run away as children," she says. "We don't know how many children would have ended up in young offenders' units, but we know how many haven't."

The Safe@Last helpline 0800 335 SAFE. For more information, call 01909 566 977 or visit www.safeatlast.org.uk