Market Testing - Return Home Interview and Child Sexual Exploitation Service

Camden Council is planning to re-commission the Return Home Interview (RHI) and Child Exploitation service. The primary focus of this statutory service is to offer and conduct quality interviews to children and adolescents reported missing within 72 hours of their return. A secondary focus is to identify child exploitation concerns, particularly among the most frequently missing, and provide extended follow-up support around prevention and education.

The service's key components include: • Return Home Interviews for young people who are reported missing • Extended follow-up support for young people with child exploitation concerns • Systems to identify and engage those most at risk of intra- and extra-familial harm • Early intervention and prevention strategies to reduce the number of missing episodes, episode duration, and/or harm during episode • 2. Details of the services within the scope Maximum budget available: £110K per year. A. Return Home Interview Services The return home interview is a conversation between a young person and a trained professional after the young person has come back from a missing incident. As a safeguarding service, it is designed to provide an opportunity to uncover information that can help protect them from the risk of going missing again, from risks they may have been exposed to while missing, or from risk factors in their home. The service will be embedded within Camden's Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and staff are expected to be located at times within the social work team at 5PS or The Crowndale Centre. Outreach engagement, visits and meetings should be held at a number of venues across the borough. The objectives of the RHI services are: • aim to meet with the young person face-to-face within 72 hours of receiving a referral • provide independent, high quality Return Home Interviews, to identify information and evidence to contribute to support and safeguarding • to enable young people who go missing to have an increased understanding of their situation, vulnerability and risks and an awareness of the resources they can access and the safety strategies they can use • to reduce the incidents of young people repeatedly going missing • to record all Return Home Interviews as required on Camden's social care recording system to support the monitoring, scale and pattern of the problem B. Extended Support for Child Exploitation Concerns The majority of young people who are most frequently reported missing have child exploitation concerns and are less likely to accept return home interviews. For these young people, the service would provide specialist support with extended follow-ups to educate about the harms of grooming and child exploitation, and ultimately prevent repeat missing episodes. Through multiple contacts, the specialist worker would guide and empower young people to develop personal strategies for engaging in education, learning emotional regulation, and prioritising safety.

Additional information: We would be grateful if responses to the attached questionnaire could be submitted by email to Marta Calonge Contreras ([email protected] ) and David Walsh ([email protected] by 4 Februrary 2022.

Following this market testing exercise Camden Council will consider options for commissioning the provision in question, and will aim to start the subsequent procurement process from March 2022.