Domestic Abuse

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 21 January 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:47, 21 January 2020

Llywydd, I think there are a number of different strands in that question. The Member began by rightly pointing out that children who are sexually exploited are more likely to have that occur to them within the home and with people they know than with strangers. Children who run away from residential care provided by the state are in a different position. They are vulnerable in a different sort of way and to a far wider range of potential perpetrators.

I am not aware of the very specific point in the Children's Society's advice. My understanding from the cases that I myself have dealt with is that when a young person runs away and are returned, they are almost always spoken to and their experiences explored with them. Whether that is a debrief interview in the sense of the Children's Society's report I'd need to look at in greater detail, and whether there is a case for making that statutory, when, as it would seem to me, it would simply be good practice on the part of any childcare social worker, to have explored with a young person on return what has happened to them in the interim, I'm happy to look at that as well.