Chereece Bateson went missing 27 times in one month and was eventually placed in a secure unit. As a teenager in the care system, she felt she had “no home, family or friends”. Now 24, she told The Independent: “I had no control over my life. My way of gaining that control back was to escape. I felt safer being on the streets than in care homes with strangers, and places I didn’t know.”
Ms Bateson helped to design and test SafeCall, ensuring the new service reflects the reality of the young people it aims to reach. The Independent has chosen SafeCall for its Christmas charity appeal because we believe that this is a small, targeted intervention that will make a big difference to thousands of children.
Every year, 72,000 children go missing in the UK. More than half of them have experienced conflict, abuse or neglect at home. Although most of them return eventually, a few do not, and all of them need help.
That is why it is so important to give them a chance to speak to someone, in confidence, about why they felt the need to disappear.
Missing People, the charity behind the idea of SafeCall, currently reaches about one in four of children reported missing. It hopes that, with your support, it can reach many more.
Working with young people who have experience of going missing, such as Ms Bateson, the charity is setting up a helpline, a WhatsApp channel and a 24-hour chatbot to make it easier for people who have gone missing or who are thinking of it to find help. The service is free, confidential and non-judgmental.
Please do read some of our reporting on children who go missing. Help us to help people such as Ms Bateson and Jade Knight get the message out to young people that they are not alone. Ms Knight, who is now 23, went missing more than 50 times as a child, “feeling lost in the world”. She now works as an ambassador for Missing People and wants to help prevent others from going through what she did.
“For anyone who feels like they want to disappear, please know that there is support out there for you,” she told us. “Just because you feel this way now doesn’t mean you will feel this way for ever. Things can change, and you have that power.
“And who knows, in six months’ time you could be where I am – telling your story of hope and helping others who can’t yet find their way.”
You can join Sir David Beckham, Dame Esther Rantzen and Sir Stephen Fry, who himself disappeared 30 years ago, in supporting our campaign. Do read our interview with Monica Dolan, the actor who became an ambassador for Missing People after she researched the part of Rosemary West, the serial killer who preyed on vulnerable young people with her husband Fred West in the 1970s and 1980s.
She told us: “The most frightening thing and most chilling thing is when people don’t notice when [others] are missing. It says something profound about how much we care about people in our society and culture. I think there are many invisible people out there.”
Thank you to all our readers who have already donated. The appeal has £100,000 in less than a month, well over halfway to our target of £165,000. The more we can raise, the more young people we can help. Please give generously, by texting SAFE to 70577 to give £10 to Missing People, or by donating on our website. Thank you.
