The Children's Society in Birmingham and the Black Country

Location

Programme Manager: Simon Cottingham

The Children's Society in Birmingham and the Black Country programme runs several projects working with children, young people and families. Our core work is around children and young people who run away from care in Birmingham and the Black Country – our Looked After Missing Persons (LAMP) project carries out independent return interviews and provides surgeries and group work in children's homes across the city.

Building Bridges is a unique family support project which works with the parents of young people who run away from home, using the 'triple p' model.

This work is delivered in partnership with Spurgeons Stepping Stones, and was developed in response to the need for family support identified during our work on the Birmingham Young Runaways Initiative (2007 – 2010) – a pilot project working with children and young people who run away from home.

The programme is also delivering the Restorative Approaches pilot project in children's homes in Birmingham and the Black Country – training staff in residential care homes in restorative justice approaches to enable them to build better relationships with the children and young people in their care and to reduce conflict within the home.

In the future, we would like to further develop our work with volunteer mentors and seek funding to develop our successful work with persistent runaways and young people who run away from home.

Visit our Black Country Advocacy Service page.