SON'S 17 YEAR OLD GIRLFRIEND

[Guest]

My son's girlfriend ran away from home two weeks ago. Her father called me to let me know. I told him I would call him if I saw her. She came to my house, I called her father to let him know she was at my house and I told him that I would bring her home. At that point, he said he was going out of town and didn't want her to come home and I urged her to contact her dad to work things out and so she could go home. She did not do so. Later in the week, I contacted her father offering to bring her home again. He said that she needs to contact him if she wants to come home. She contacted her dad a week ago to apologize and ask if she could come home. She begged him to come home, they yelled at eathother and he hung up on her. At this point, I told her she could not come to my house because I was advised by her dad that he filed a missing person's report. In the meantime, she's been bouncing from house to house, friend to friend. She attends school sporadically. Yesterday, her father went to her school for a meeting with an administrator and herself. I don't know what was said in that meeting but it wasn't good because her dad did not take her home, he left her standing at school. She ended up spending the night at another friends house.
I'm concerned about her. But I still won't allow her to come to my house. What is your suggestion?

[ccsmod8]

Re: SON'S 17 YEAR OLD GIRLFRIEND

Hello,

Thank you for contacting us at the National Runaway Switchboard. It sounds like you were put in a tough spot to be there for your son's girlfriend while that responsibility rest with her father. It sounds like you wish to be there for her and to make it work out to lessen the burden of the situation on you and your son. You did the right thing by reaching for ideas for how to try to resolve this issue. Running is not illegal but a youth will get a status offense as a minor once the guardian calls the police to report it. If this happens, it can put you in an even tougher spot since you are now considered harboring a runaway if she is in your home currently. Harboring a runaway is indeed illegal and can lead to legal ramifications later.

It sounds like you are trying to take the best approach and we are sure this has become too much of an issue for you to handle. After all, you have your own family to look out for. We can be the middle ground between your son's girlfriend and her father if you feel it has become too much for you to deal with alone. There are various options to try in this case. The first can be the involvement of the police for her to file a locked out report with the police if her dad is not responding to her to come home. It sounds like he has made her harder for her to come home after some attempts on her part. It sounds like the meeting at school was scheduled for that purpose but things changed once they walked away from it.

The second option to try if you are willing to go ahead and speak with youth about is calling Child Protective Services. They are the agency that defines neglect but we are not. However, our job is to file reports if the youth were to call us for support. In the event that the dad refuses to not forego his responsibilities as a father, we can call local area agencies to advocate for the youth to get support or even find her a shelter if she does not have a place to go.

Shelters are safe places and they are also mandated reporters also. We can call around for her to find a place to stay if you are not for the idea of her staying in your home. The other option that is available to her is for her to call us to call home to do a conference call with her father. We are not here to tell her father or youth what to do but we are here to provide an avenue to get everything on the table if the father is willing to converse with us about what needs to change to get youth home.

We are here for you and all those involved 24 hours a day. We are confidential and anonymous. Although, using our conference or message service will allow us to become mandatory reporters for neglect since we are expected to get names and numbers for youth and parents to complete these services. Our number is 1800RUNAWAY. We hope there is something we can do to make this all work out. Good luck.

-NRS

[Guest]

Re: SON'S 17 YEAR OLD GIRLFRIEND

Thank you so much. she has decided to attempt to go home again and if her dad does not let her back in the house, she will call the police and make a report. i will keep you posted. I also gave her your phone number to call in case it has to go any further.

[ccsmod3]

Re: SON'S 17 YEAR OLD GIRLFRIEND

Thanks for the update. We are happy to be of help and are glad that you passed along our number. Let us know if we can do anything else.

-NRS