Editorial: Foster children on the run

Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006 | 7:10 a.m.

On any given day, about 75 children are missing as runaways from foster homes or shelters in Clark County, staying away for a few hours or days or simply disappearing forever.

Children who are removed from their homes because of suspected neglect or abuse often do not want to stay in the foster homes or shelters where they live temporarily until their cases are resolved. So they run away, leaving behind social workers and foster families who don't know how to find them and bring them home.

Detaining these children isn't an option. They have done nothing wrong, so it would be unfair to hold them in secured facilities as if they had committed a crime. These youths are victims, not criminals. Their lives are in turmoil, and they know that foster homes and shelters aren't permanent solutions. It can be hard for them to stay put and be patient while the legal system sorts out their lives.

"These kids -- we don't want them to be forgotten," Frank Sullivan, a Family Court hearing master, told Sun reporter David Kihara.

Tracking down these missing children is difficult because information detailing how many are missing, the length of time they have been gone and the efforts that have been made to locate them isn't as comprehensive as it should be, officials said. The courts often learn that a child is missing only when his case comes up for a mandatory six-month review. By that time, a runaway could be living in another state.

As a result, in February Sullivan will begin conducting what he calls "AWOL Court." It won't be an actual legal proceeding. Instead, it will be a meeting with social workers and others involved with foster children to review the cases of missing youths and determine plans for finding them. The meetings may be monthly, but a final schedule has not been determined.

The proposal is modeled after a similar program in Michigan, where authorities located 618 of 787 foster children who were missing in 2004.

Clark County still needs to address a few details, Sullivan said, such as coordinating with officials in neighboring states, where youths may flee. But we applaud this pro-active approach to helping these troubled youngsters. They need to know that there are adults who will search high and low to help them.