RADAR-Running Away: Drivers, Awareness, Responses

“The Smile of the Child” participates in the implementation of the project RADAR, which focuses on children who are at risk of running away or who have previously run away from their family home or care home. The aim of the project is to change the way runaway children are perceived and to improve society’s understanding of why they run away. The project aims to support professionals, law enforcement and adults improve their knowledge, skills and preparedness so that they may prevent and protect runaway children in the best way possible.

Through its activities the project also wants to demonstrate that running away is not a behavioral problem but a consequence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) (ex physical/emotional/sexual abuse, parental divorce, incarceration of a parent or guardian, death of someone close, witnessing violence etc).

The project will be implemented transnationally in 5 countries by Organizations with long lasting experience, Belgium (Missing Children Europe/Leader, University of Liege, Child Focus), Greece (“The Smile of the Child”), The Netherlands (Child Helpline International), Poland (Itaka) και Portugal (IAC Instituto de Apoio à Criança). Its duration will be 24 months and it is co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union.

The main deliverables/results of the project will be the following:

  • Research report with recommendations for policy and for training.
  • Developing trainings and toolkits for law enforcement authorities and professionals in relevant fields.
  • Running two awareness raising campaigns across each country.
  • Creating a Massive Open Online Course to spread the knowledge and research obtained throughout the project. The course will focus on providing best ways to prevent and respond to children running away.
  • Developing an impact evaluation report to evaluate the end result of the project.


Disclaimer:
The RADAR project (REC-RRAP-GBV-AG-2019-881561) is co-funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020). The content of this publication represents the views of the author only and is its sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.