When a young person goes missing from a children’s home, the first hours matter. Very often they have a phone with them: one the home gave them, or the house phone they picked up on the way out. If that phone is managed by us, we can tell the home where it is.
A real example: October 2026
Shortly after midnight, a young person left one of the homes we support and took the house phone with them. The on-call deputy manager emailed our support desk. When we picked the request up, the phone’s location came back within 20 seconds of asking, on the first attempt.
On this occasion the young person had already come home safely. The point stands, though: the home had a way to find the phone, without needing the phone’s password and without anyone touching it.
Which phones we can locate
- Phones we supply for young people. On our locked-down phones, location cannot be switched off, so the phone can be found whenever it is on and has a signal. More about our locked-down phones for young people.
- House phones and other phones the home owns that we manage for you. This includes the house phone a young person takes when they leave.
We never locate a phone without a request from the home or the police. Every request and every result is logged against a support ticket, so there is a record for the missing-from-care report and for Ofsted.
What the home needs to do
- Report it. Email or call the support desk with the name of the home, which phone has gone, and when the young person left. Urgent support for contract clients runs from 6am until 10pm, every day. Outside those hours, email us and we pick it up from 6am; in the meantime follow your missing-from-care procedure and contact the police as normal.
- Follow your missing-from-care procedure as normal. Locating the phone is extra information for staff and the police. It does not replace calling them.
- Tell us when the young person is back, so we can stop and close the ticket.
What it can and cannot do
- It gives the phone’s location at the moment we ask. We can ask again as often as needed while the young person is missing.
- The phone has to be switched on and have a signal or Wi-Fi. A phone that is off or has a flat battery shows its last known check-in, not where it is now.
- Location can be out by some distance, especially indoors or in areas with few masts. Treat it as a strong lead, not an exact address.
- The police can also ask the mobile network for the phone’s location, and we will help them do that.
Getting it set up before you need it
Locating only works on phones we already manage, so this needs doing before the night it is needed. We check that every house phone and young person’s phone in your homes is enrolled, has location switched on and is named so it can be found in seconds.
If you want this in place for your homes, talk to us, or read more about phones for children’s homes and our IT support for children’s homes.
