EGADZ’s Executive Director says the Missing Youth Saskatchewan app is designed to reduce the number of young people who are reported missing.
Building on EGADZ’s Operation Runaway risk assessment tool, if the app guides the worker to report the young person missing, with a click of a button the worker can then easily share all relevant information with their local police services.
Don Meikle describes it as an app created for youth by youth because not all young people who miss a check in with their worker are at risk of harm.
The way the system functioned prior to this revamped risk assessment tool is that any youth in care who isn’t home by curfew are asked to be called in missing.
“They are quite often at a friend’s place, somewhere that people know where they are but the policy states, they have to be called in missing. Which takes a lot of police resources to be looking for kids where they know where they are. The really interesting thing is, when we started doing this, the youth were getting quite upset with police, with the Ministry of Social Services because they’re saying you took us from our family, social services you put us into care and then now we don’t come home on time and we’re getting called in to police. Often a lot of them were at a friend’s or with family and the police would show up and tell them they have to go home.”
Meikle says consequently reports to the Board of Police Commissioners were also showing extremely high numbers of youth missing. He says the Ministry of Social Services met with some of the youth and showed them the risk assessment that was being followed which is when changes were made that were implemented at EGADZ’s facility.
EGADZ’s executive director says, in addition to input from youth, they worked closely with the Missing Persons Unit in Saskatoon to refine the risk assessment and went through the police report to make changes to assist both police and EGADZ staff in making a decision as to whether the kids should be called in as missing. He says risk assessment in the current app which was implemented at EGADZ in 2018 resulted in a drop in missing person numbers. Last year for every risk assessment completed they only had to call in one in three.
Meikle says it creates an opportunity to identify kids in a really vulnerable situation so police can focus their efforts on those youth. He says they will be doing presentations in Regina and Prince Albert as well. The app and its results will be reviewed in a year with all the community-based organizations and police, at which time they will make changes as needed.
