National alerts to all hospitals and local authorities in England and Wales can be sent out by the Quality Assurance Unit to help locate a missing looked after child or a family or pregnant mother who has gone missing and where there are child protection concerns and either the child is subject to a CP plan or there is an ongoing section 47 investigation.

Alerts need to be sent out once the child or family has been missing for 5 days (or immediately in child protection cases where there are high levels of concern).

Social workers should discuss the matter with the team manager and obtain authorisation from the Head of Service for a national alert to be sent out.

An alert pro-forma (available on MOSAIC) should be completed by the social worker and sent to the Service Co-ordinator:

Shilpa Karim: ext: 8279

[email protected]